Immolation
by reconnoiterer
Summary: Almost ten years after the Spencer Mansion incident, Chris Redfield is still haunted by the ghosts of his past. Finally, enough is enough, but what is the price of vengeance?
1. Chapter 1

The hot, humid nights at the end of July were always the worst. The windows were wide open, but the light breeze barely moved the curtains, letting in air more hot than cool, doing more harm than good. But he couldn't bear to close them, the stifling claustrophobia of a sealed room more uncomfortable than any suffocating heat. He had spent too many years on the run, hiding out in cramped, stuffy little rooms with no air-circulation, barely able to breathe with the stink of sweating, unwashed human flesh. Now he kept at least one window open whenever possible, never knowing when he'd be cut off from fresh air again.

No, it wasn't the heat that kept Chris Redfield awake, nor was it the gorgeous woman curled up naked beside him, her face next to his on the pillow and one arm slung haphazardly over his chest.

Jill Valentine.

Sometimes he forgot how breathtaking she was; all the little details that made her stand out blurring together after so much time.

The way she bit one side of her lip when she was nervous. The way she could kill a man 50 ways with nothing but her bare hands and a paperclip. The way she walked, heads above everyone else in the room. The way her hair curled against the nape of her neck. The way she didn't even have to raise her voice to instill fear in the hearts of men. The way she would smile at him across a room, but only when she thought no one was looking.

He would forget, and then it would all come back to him in one burning rush, like an electric shock.

It had taken a long time, too long a time, for them to get to a place in their lives where they could finally sit down and admit what they had together. It would have been too messy an ordeal while they were both on S.T.A.R.S. Alpha team; too many politics, and Wesker had made his distaste for relationships between officers more than evident. And then after, with the world on the brink of collapse, living on the run, squatting in every little shit-hole known to man while Umbrella tightened their death grip - it had hardly been time to set up house.

Umbrella. Their abominations had kept him up far too many nights in the first few months after the Spencer Mansion incident, and then again after Rockfort and Antarctica. Horribly mutated creatures had chased him down endless, winding corridors, their infected breath hot on his neck as his fingers fumbled over every inane little puzzle. Eventually he had just stopped dreaming all together, the clammy night-sweats fading into a dark, restful sleep.

The reason he was still awake, a fan methodically moving hot air over both of their sweating forms, the sheets bunched at the foot of the bed, was, oddly enough, Barry Burton's wife.

Ever since Leon Kennedy had limped back from Spain almost a year ago with news that Umbrella was back their lives had been put through the meatgrinder –again. They – the former S.T.A.R.S. as well as Claire and Leon – spent hours each day trying to dig up any lead on Wesker's new nightmare, all the while still valiantly trying to maintain the thin venir of routine on their so-called Normal Lives.

But Wesker had learned from the mistakes of the old heads of Umbrella, and almost twelve months of frantic searching had produced next to nothing. Judging on what Leon had been able to tell them about what had happened in Spain, and Wesker's interest in it, they were quickly running out of time, if they hadn't already.

Chris had phoned Barry earlier in the evening to give him the latest dismal report on the most recent batch of dead-ends they had turned up. Barry's wife, Kathy, who had been like a surrogate mother to Chris and his sister ever since they had been introduced, had answered.

"You're going to run yourself ragged if you don't start taking it easy," she had scolded, "you're only human you know."

He was only human, and that was the problem. No matter what they did, Wesker was always ten steps ahead of them and larger than life. It was like they were all still stuck at the Spencer Estate, following the trail of breadcrumbs right into the Tyrant's lair. Chris couldn't shake the feeling that Wesker still had a hand in every meager lead they managed to find, still manipulating them for his own pleasure, the way it always had been.

And even if they could catch up to him, what would they do with him? Their last face-to-face in Antarctica had been like dueling with a semi-truck. Wesker was impossibly fast, and sickeningly strong, the side-effects of the infection only bolstering what had already been an impressive array of talents. That load of iron bars should have crushed him; the falling debris should have seared off half of his face, but instead he'd laughed. _Laughed_. Chris had been lucky that day, but he wouldn't be again, and he couldn't afford to rely on that kind of luck any more.

Jill shifted beside him, murmuring sleepily for him to get some rest before tucking her head more securely under his chin. He pulled her closer, feeling her warm breath against his chest, and closed his eyes. Wesker would still be around to deal with tomorrow – he always was.


	2. Chapter 2

Manipulation was one of Albert Wesker's favourite hobbies. In his mind, the role of the puppet-master was akin to God, and the feeling of satisfaction he gained from watching his own carefully engineered plans fall into place was almost euphoric. The increased feeling of disconnection with the human race he felt in the years since his 'infection' had only heightened his ability to mastermind, and carry out, such careful, methodical plots. Which was why now, as he was about to initiate the first step in a much larger and ultimately rewarding plan, he almost allowed himself a small smile of pride. He would have, except for the short, sweating, stinking man beside him who was almost vibrating with sadistic, perverted, anticipation.

Dr. Samuel West was one of what Wesker referred to as "Umbrella's Old Guard". He had been with the company from the beginning, had been recruited right out of med school, because he was one of the few, truly, psychotically, brilliant researchers the western world had produced since the end of the Second World War. Brilliant, but cowardly, he had remained under the radar during Umbrella's downfall by selling trade secrets to the Government in exchange for his freedom. West was also obsessive in his work, and Wesker knew that as long as he was allowed the resources and the 'free hand' he so loved in his research he would remain loyal to whoever indulged him.

From the padded examination table, firmly secured with straps at all extremities, the subject moaned from somewhere deep in her medicated state. West moved to the head of the table, stroking his shaking, clammy hands over her face, neck and hair, making low, soothing noises in his throat.

"Sometimes they get a little agitated before the procedure," West said, stroking the back of his hand affectionately over the exposed skin of her shoulder above the paper sheet that hid the rest of her modesty.

_As well they should_, Wesker thought to himself, _the majority of them wind up in the incinerator_. He cleared his throat, "is this going to take much longer?"

"Oh no, of course not," West moved away, his motions barely concealing his reluctance, gathering a tray of syringes from a cart nearby. The subject had, by no means, any of the qualities which Western Society had deemed beautiful. Dull, mousey brown hair was pushed off features which held none of the doll-like frailty so mass-marketed today, the harsh fluorescent lighting of the room casting a sickly, greyish pallor across her skin. In Wesker's opinion she appeared to be the type of non-threatening girl you brought home to your mother, but not the one you spent all Saturday night fucking senseless. She had been an easy target, would be missed little by the outside world, and had practically deposited herself in their hands when she had applied as a Lab Assistant under the new Umbrella Corporation. Routine blood tests conducted, on the surface, to ensure the safety of staff, had revealed her to be an excellent specimen. Free of any major genetic abnormalities or deficiencies, the latest virus would have free reign in her system, rendering her a perfect new B.O.W. to add to Wesker's collection.

The newest virus developed by a team which included West and a panel of others, was a conglomerate of the serum Birkin had developed specifically for Wesker, as synthesized from his blood, and the parasite which Saddler had used to control his Ganados. Although Ada's efforts to keep the sample from him had been valiant, there wasn't much that a little power, money, and intimidation couldn't procure.

The result was a powerful, lethally efficient B.O.W. with outstanding regenerative abilities who was entirely obedient and controllable. The virus, called UC-3113b for now, was not nearly as violent as the T-Virus, or as unstable as the G-Virus, and could lay dormant in a specimens system for years, allowing subjects to continue their normal lives, all the while harbouring the ability to, when instructed, ruthlessly annihilate those around them. While the original Umbrella Corporation had relied, at least in part, on the perversion of their B.O.W.'s to incite a reaction in their victims which, in many circumstances, rendered them frozen, horrified, stationary targets, Wesker felt the real perfection of his latest creation lay in the _humanness_ of the 'sleepers' – as they were sometimes called. He knew from experiences that the element of betrayal should never be underestimated, and it was something he planned to utilize fully in his latest endeavour.

First, swabbing the area with an antiseptic, West readied a syringe, tapping the glass lightly with a fingernail to eject all of the air bubbles. The serum was deep amber in colour, and appeared to be slightly more viscous than water in consistency. The subject made no response as West pushed the needle tip into her flesh, but as the plunger was fully depressed a reaction was visible from somewhere behind her clouded conscious.

She gasped as her eyes opened, sucking in air loudly as she tried to sit up against the restraints. A burning sensation swept its way through her body from the injection site as the virus consumed the sedative in her system and began dominating the rest of her cells. These first few minutes were the most critical – either the virus would dominate the subjects system entirely, eradicating the host entirely, or it would find an appropriate niche and begin integrating itself with the specimens already existing cells, improving them. As the subject found her voice and began to scream Wesker knew it had been a success. They always died before they could scream, drowning and gurgling in their own blood as their lungs and heart were consumed and liquefied. He left West to deal with the rest of the proceedings, the high-pitched screeching of the newly born B.O.W. echoing on an irritating frequency in his hypersensitive ears. And as the stainless steel elevator doors closed behind him, returning him back to the surface, Albert Wesker allowed himself a small smile of celebration; after years of setbacks and disappointments, things were finally going well.


	3. Chapter 3

Evidently Wesker, and however many of his handpicked cronies, had learned little from the mishaps of the former Umbrella Corporation. Or, at least that much seemed apparent to Chris as he stepped through a doorway littered with the debris of what had once been a state-of-the-art scientific facility. Four days ago, a viral leak had occurred as a result of quick and shoddy construction on the facility, resulting in the quick, although evidently painful, deaths of the staff as the security system initiated its biohazard containment protocols. The S.T.A.R.S. communications sector had picked up a brief emergency distress call from a cell phone, and, after quickly determining the nature of the disaster, Chris and his team, as experts in biohazard and B.O.W. emergencies, had arrived as soon as possible.

"Jill, you and Barry check out the rest of this floor while Rebecca and I go downstairs," he said, his voice tinny through the mouthpiece of his air-filtration mask. Jill nodded, and with a tilt of her head she and Barry disappeared through another doorway.

The basement was in no better condition than the floor above. Tables, chairs, along with paper and other debris lay scattered across the floor from the panic that had obviously ensued when the security system had filled the rooms with carbon monoxide, suffocating the workers and turning their brains to a sludge that could not be reactivated. A couple of bodies lay piled by the door, but many of them were resigned, slumped at their desks, their faces pale and peaceful, illuminated by the harsh emergency lighting.

"This is so awful," Rebecca said as she turned over a young man, his eyes clouded. "How could they do this to their own people?"

"It's never stopped them before," replied Chris, searching the lab coat pockets of a middle-aged woman and retrieving a pass-card. "I'm sure they have some nice little clause in their contract that keeps any bereaved family members from holding them liable." He passed the card through the reader on the door at one end of the room, shining his flashlight into darkness beyond. "I'm going to check down here – call out if you find anything useful."

Mary Volsky was sure she had finally starved to the point of hallucination when she saw a bright light flash across the window of the Hunter Test Lab she had been locked in for the past four days. One of the Hunters in the enclosure closest to her chirped at the movement and she dipped her fingers in lightly to reassure it. The still-developing B.O.W. nuzzled the soft pads, cooing gently, before returning to where its siblings were devouring a mutilated human forearm. Charles and Mary had been the only two who had managed to escape to the Test Lab before the security system went off. The Lab was a safe haven, as the specimens there were far too valuable to destroy, even in the event of an emergency. Unfortunately for Charles, the Hunters were not nearly as fond of him and one particularly dominant male had slashed at him when he ventured too close to their enclosure. The wound had only taken a few hours to fester and Charles, always the gentlemen, even in death, had used the self-defence gun kept in the survival kit on himself before the first twenty-four hours had passed. Charles had always made fond comments about her 'resourcefulness' on her evaluations, and so Mary, the shrieks of the increasingly hungry B.O.W.'s quickly filling the small space, had comforted herself with the knowledge that he might have approved as she divided him into standardized chunks.

Peering out the reinforced plexi-glass that was the only window to the outside hallway, she caught sight of the light once more as it flitted over something farther down the hall. She pounded her fists against the door to attract attention, screaming – albeit weakly – for help, and was entirely surprised when it was not the masked face of a UBCS soldier that appeared in the window. The man behind the door, a half-face ventilator obscuring half of his features, looked just as confused as she did, from what she could make out of his features. Mary caught sight of some kind of military-style badge on the sleeve of his shirt. The man shined his flashlight up into her face, forcing her to shield her eyes with one hand.

"Who are you?" his voice was almost unintelligible through the seal of his mask as well as the door.

"Please help me!" she struggled with the handle of the door. Her voice sounded strange and hoarse in her own ears.

"Are you alone in there?" the man asked, shining his flashlight around the room, briefly illuminating Charles' foot as he swept by the cages, at least a dozen red, beady eyes peering out at him.

"Yes!" She thought of a memo that had been passed around earlier in the week, outlining the policies and procedures in the event of a full scale police investigation. When they applied, most Umbrella researchers were aware that their work would push the very limits of the definition of 'ethical' and the information packet had made it very clear that there would be extremely harsh penalties for those who were disloyal under pressure. Half-mad with hunger, fear, and adrenaline Mary decided to throw loyalty out the window in exchange for safety. "Please, I work here, I can tell you everything." Her hands pounded uselessly against the glass, "names, passwords, anything! Please! Just let me out!"

From his position Chris could see the wild eyes of the scientist begin to tear up as she struggled with the doorknob again. He spoke briefly to Rebecca on his radio and then motioned for the researcher to move out of the way. Surprisingly, the door's mechanism was fairly simple, and for a skilled marksman such as himself, relatively easy to disable.

The door flew inward, at the same moment allowing both new light and air to flood the room, and filling the hallways with the stink of decomposition and caged animals as well as the irritated shrieks of the disturbed hunters. As he stepped past their cages they threw themselves at him, their weight butting uselessly against the fine but strong mesh that kept them at bay. The researcher, a young woman about the same age as Rebecca or his sister, was stuffing disks and papers into a laptop case on the other side of the small, dark room. As Chris stepped over the body of Charles to reach her, he noticed that aside from most of his face, the man was also missing his right arm. It appeared to have been removed surgically, with clean, concise cuts, as opposed to torn off by one of the hungry B.O.W.s.

"What happened to him?" he asked, holstering his weapon but keeping it close at hand.

"I had to," she swallowed hard, her whole body seeming to shake with adrenaline, "it was him or both of us." As if to illustrate her point, one of the Hunters threw itself viciously against the mesh again.

Chris picked up another ID card from the table, "are you Mary?" She nodded in reply, her eyes glued to him despite the racket of the B.O.W.'s. Chris supposed that after a few days locked in here he might learn to ignore them too – but then again, maybe not. "I'm Captain Redfield of S.T.A.R.S. Anti-Bio Terror Unit. You're not under arrest, but I am going to have to ask you to come quietly." Mary stepped toward him warily, with all the vigour of someone who hasn't eaten in half a week. He looked like he could snap her in half if she tried to put up a fight, all steely eyes, hard jaw-lines, and tightly corded muscles. With his respirator still on it was like trying to have a conversation with Darth Vader.

"Captain?" Rebecca's voice, and the crunch of debris under her boots, could be heard from the hallway. He motioned her into the room, the hunters renewing their hisses.

"This is Officer Chambers, our medical officer. She going to take you outside and get you cleaned up." Mary nodded, seemingly relieved not to be alone with him anymore.

Chris mentally went through his personal inventory, assessing the easiest way to deal with the caged B.O.W.s. Most of them were still small enough to be dealt with using a single handgun round or two. But the cages also appeared to be shatter proof, which meant they might be able to withstand the blast of a hand grenade, saving time and effort on his part.

"What are you going to do to them?" a hoarse voice interrupted his thoughts and he turned, seeing Rebecca and Mary still outlined in the doorway. Rebecca was tugging softly on her arm, trying to guide her out into the hall, but the slightly taller woman broke away, her eyes flickering to where his hand was resting on the handle of his 9mm. "You can't kill them," her voice was a plea, and Chris couldn't believe the tears he saw shining in her eyes. "They're just babies – you wouldn't kill a baby would you?" She placed her icy hands on his forearm, trying to tug his hand away. Behind her one of the hunters cooed as she stepped into its line of sight. Chris had never heard any of the biological weapons he had ever encountered make a sound like that.

"I might if I thought it wanted to eat the flesh right off my bones,"

"C'mon," Rebecca intervened, pulling Mary back by her shoulders, "we're going to self-destruct the entire building when we leave. Captain Redfield's an excellent marksman – it'll be quicker for them this way."

He waited until he heard the stairwell door close behind them before unloading a clip of ammo into the first of the cages – sometimes it was just more satisfying to do things the hard way.


	4. Chapter 4

The S.T.A.R.S. facility cafeteria was almost empty at this time of night. At meal times it was often packed to capacity, but it was after 11 o'clock now and everything had been closed down for an hour or two already. A rookie officer sat at one of the tables in the back, pouring over the paperwork laid out in front of him, several empty coffee cups strewn across the pages. Along the other wall sat the mousey-haired girl Chris had scoured the building for, the one he had saved from the Umbrella facility. Although his boot heels sounded along the tile floor as he stepped towards her, she didn't look up until he sat across from her.

Mary was bundled in the unisex, awkwardly sized sweatpants and hooded sweatshirt that was standard gym issue for all S.T.A.R.S. members. Her hair had been freshly washed and combed, and the dark circles under her eyes gave her a kind of haunted appearance. Chris personally thought that a boring name like 'Mary' perfectly suited such a mediocre, forgettable girl. Three-quarters of a ham and Swiss sandwich lay on its plate in front of her, along with a mostly-full bottle of apple juice.

"It's good to see you found something to eat,"

"I thought I would be hungrier," she tugged listlessly at a piece of lettuce sticking out from the layers of bread. "Everything tastes like sawdust."

"It'll come back, you just have to give it some time."

"Captain," she started after a pause, her eyes still on her hands, "I never got the chance to thank you for saving me and for letting me stay here until things get sorted out. I really owe you."

"I know," he caught her startled, dish-water gaze with his own unwavering one. "That's why I'm going to ask you for a favour."

She glared at him, angry and sceptical, "what kind of favour, exactly?"

"I need you to make me…" Chris paused, searching for the right words._Into a monster_ came to mind. Instead, he used Wesker's own words, still burned into his mind, "better."

"Better? Are you ill?"

"No, not like that. I want you to make something that will make me faster… stronger…"

"Look, if you think that just because you saved my ass I'm going to help you in some kind of performance drug trafficking scheme..."

"No!" he scrubbed his hands over his eyes, still not totally believing what he was doing. "Not like that. Not like a drug. Like the Hunters. A virus."

Mary stared at him, open-mouthed, gaping like a fish. "What?!" she finally burst out, even startling herself with the volume of her exclamation. Chris glanced briefly over his shoulder, but the rookie had finally had enough and packed it in. "You want me to… but why? You… hate all of that, you all do here."

"I need to be able to compete with them on a level I just can't get to as a human."

There was a pause as she considered.

"I see. Well okay, fine, but how am I supposed to come up with this super-virus anyway huh? It took _years_ to develop the T-virus, and the G-virus, well… William Birkin was a genius and…"

"We have samples of both of those here; you won't have to develop anything. And I know the virus I want you to try emulate is likely a mixture of them both, but suited specifically to a person's genetic make-up. You'll have access to everything you need, and no questions asked."

"How do you know I won't just kill you? Or turn you into some kind of horrible, mutated monster?"

"Because I think you like the challenge of it. I've looked at your record; you've always been stuck under someone else, some old man taking all the credit for everything you've done. I think you've been looking your whole life for something to prove to the world you're as smart as you think you are. I also know that you don't have anywhere else to go."

"And if I refuse?"

"I know I'm a respected officer of the law and I saw a man with a suspicious bullet wound in his face and a missing arm in that room. I know I've got a lot of connections in this town and you're a pathetic lab tech for one of the most villainous companies to ever grace this earth, and one who has a personal affinity for reptilian biological weapons. After Raccoon City, who do you think a jury is more likely to believe?"

"Fuck you." Chris could see her paling even further under the harsh fluorescent lighting. He hated having to be the type of person to put someone in a corner like that, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

"So you'll do it then," it wasn't a question.

"Fine. But I hope your dick falls off because of it."

"You can start tomorrow," he stood up, pausing as he strode past her bench, feeling her eyes bore into his back as he walked away, "enjoy your dinner Miss Volsky."


	5. Chapter 5

Chris wondered if anyone had ever died in this motel room before. It certainly seemed like the type of place where some pimp would beat his prize hooker to death, or a junkie would take a last little hit of heaven. Not to mention the diseases that no doubt lurked under the darkly-coloured, threadbare comforter. It was the nicest place he could find that didn't require a credit card to rent a room and he had to admit, he had stayed in a lot worse in his time. At least there was running water and he had yet to see anything living darting its way across the mottled carpet.

But part of him still wondered if he would be the next body pulled out of here under a sheet. It was the same part of him that was wondering exactly what he thought he was doing in a place like this with a little glass vial and a fresh syringe sitting next to him on the bed in their non-descript little black case.

He rested his elbows on his knees, cradling his face in his hands. What _was_ he doing? How had things deteriorated so quickly? Was there really no other option?

No. He wasn't going to play that game now. He had spent years checking the pros against the cons, the risks against the benefits. It was the only way to get close to Wesker, to tear him limb from limb and satisfy the burning obsession that had haunted every aspect of his life since that night in the mansion. It was the only way to end the abomination of this new Umbrella before it could even begin.

But why _him_, that same, quiet part of his mind screamed. Why not someone else without friends and family to worry about him? Why not play Wesker's own game and assign the dirty work to someone beneath him?

Because when he stripped away all of the moral bullshit this crusade had always been steeped in, it wasn't about saving the world. It wasn't even about helping people. It was about hurting someone very badly. It was about taking his pound of flesh for every moment he'd had to spend looking over his shoulder for the most unnatural, ungodly creatures to ever walk the Earth. It was about indulging every bloodthirsty fantasy he'd had over the past nearly ten years. It was something he could never, _never_, allow someone else to rob him of.

And it was thoughts like those that made him feel as though he deserved to do the 'dirty work'. To inject himself with an experimental biological weapon in a cheap motel room and hope for the best. It was his sacrifice, but it would be his glory as well.

Jill. Claire. Barry. Rebecca. The names flashed through his mind along with the faces. No doubt they were already hunting for him. Would they be disgusted if and when they saw him again?

Likely.

Would they ever come around to understanding? It was possible.

Chris lay back on the bed with a sigh, feeling for the leather satchel beside his thigh. Good ole Mary and her sick, capable, geneticist mind. Manipulating her hadn't been one of his finest moments, but he'd left her with plenty of room for revenge. She had been so indignant when he went to retrieve the virus he thought she might actually spit at him – something pretty bold for someone who could barely bring herself to look him in the eye. And yet the little packaged she'd prepared for him included everything he needed, right down to the little pre-packaged antiseptic swabs.

Pulling himself upright, he took a last inventory of his body. Would everything still feel the same afterwards? Did the world still look the same to Wesker's mutated eyes? Would his own infection manifest itself in a similar way? Chris took a deep breath steeling himself to the fact that there was only one way to find out.

He unzipped the satchel, pulling out a length of rubber tubing and tying off his arm, feeling all too much like a junkie on its last legs. Keeping his arm propped on his leg, he attached the provided needle to the syringe, pulling the plastic cap off with his teeth. One arm throbbing from lack of blood, and the other shaking, he lined the pinprick up with one now bulging vein, letting the sharp point just pierce the skin. Then, with one final deep breath in and out, he pushed the plunger, feeling the serum enter his blood in a rush.

At first there was nothing. And then, pain.

It felt like his blood had literally started to boil in his veins, searing him from the inside out. He ripped the rubber tubing off of his arm, hurling it to the far side of the room. He could feel every burning pulse-beat pushing the virus closer to his heart, his lungs, his brain. Chris let out a strangled gasp as the molten lead that had replaced his blood clamped around his chest, squeezing his lungs until they felt like they would burst. He slid off of the bed, clutching his throat, his breath coming in dry, panicked heaves, and a frightening pressure building behind his eyes, causing them to tear up. Crawling towards the bathroom he used the doorframe to pull himself up, the muscles in his legs grating against each other like razorblades with every movement.

Two words focused in his mind: _that BITCH. That BITCH. That BITCH is going to fucking KILL me_.

He was _burning up_. He was going to combust into flames any second. His brain was literally going to fry inside of his skull. Chris stumbled forward into the bathroom, his feet tripping over themselves against the blessedly cool tile. His eyes closed tightly against the pressure bursting behind them, his hands blindly searched out the cold water faucet on the shower, turning it on full blast.

Icy-cold water poured down from the showerhead, as Chris, the strength of his muscles failing him, struggled to pull his own weight into the tub. Finally he managed to lift himself over the edge, the relief of the cool water and ceramic causing him to groan, his breathing still coming harshly, his heart feeling like it would rip itself right out of his chest. He pressed a hand over its erratic beating, letting the frigid water pour down over his face, into his mouth, blissfully calming the burning in his skull.

And then everything went black.


	6. Chapter 6

Leon was having a Bad Day. He'd barely had a chance to open the first file folder on the heap on his desk when he'd been slapped in the face with the knowledge that two agents had been killed in the field; and things had just gotten exponentially worse from there.

The first time his cell-phone went off, vibrating madly in the inner breast pocket of his suit jacket, he was deadlocked in a meeting of Very Important People, so he ignored it as best he could and kept his eyes dutifully locked on the short, balding man speaking at the front of the room. He ignored it the next three times too before extracting himself, dodging around several nasty looking glares and not a few raised eyebrows on his way to the door. Even Hunnigan, usually at least somewhat sympathetic, shot him a pair of cool, icy daggers. But only a select few people had his personal number, and all of them new better than to call him with a trivial matter.

It was late in the afternoon, but the office was still humming with the adrenaline of activity. Still, with so many other saps also tied up in meetings with the VIP crowd it wasn't difficult to find a deserted office and lock himself in. Flipping open his cell-phone he feared the worst; his father had been complaining of chest pains last time he phoned home, his oldest niece was just getting to the age when her friends were getting their drivers licenses, one of his police academy buddies' wife was having a difficult pregnancy…

404-555-6679

Claire.

_Christ_. He punched the call-back button, the tension in his shoulders ratcheting up a notch even farther. It rang a few times, and Leon felt the plastic pressed to his face heat up and become damp with the perspiration pouring off his hand. His hands had always sweated when he was nervous, which was why, among other reasons, he always wore gloves in the field. His body always gave away what his mind thought he had under control.

"Hello?" a hollow voice finally answered. Leon cleared his throat before speaking,

"Claire? It's Leon,"

"Oh," the fact that she sounded dazed made him afraid to ask the next logical question.

"Is… something wrong?" he was pacing around the small office, the golden rays of the burgeoning sunset filtering through the Venetian blinds, casting dark stripes of shadow across the room.

"It's Chris," she paused and Leon felt his heart stop, dreading, but already knowing what she was going to say. "He's…gone. Just…gone."

"Oh God." Well fuck, the bastard had really gone and done it again.

"I just can't believe he's gone. _Again._" She sounded numb, and he couldn't even imagine how she must look, because he had never heard her sound so empty. Not even when she and Chris had limped back from Antarctica, the memory of Steve still a fresh wound on her conscience. Which meant he didn't have any idea how much time he had to get to her before she broke down and either lost it completely, or went after him. And Leon wasn't sure if _he_ could live through that again.

"Just hang on Claire, okay? I'm going to come down,"

"No Leon, it's okay really. I know you have work and I just wanted to talk to-"

"It doesn't matter. I'll be right there as soon as I can, so don't go anywhere okay? Just wait for me, sweetheart, please."

"You really don't have to,"

"I do. Look, I'm going to hang up now, but just hang in there."

They said their goodbyes and Leon walked out of the office right into the lion's den. Hunnigan, who, from the looks of it, had been in the middle of raking a very frightened looking intern over the coals, turned her full attention to him.

"I don't know what you think you're doing, but you better be prepared to answer to a room full of Very Important, now Very Pissed Off, people as to just who you think you are and where you got that kind of nerve." Leon moved past her towards his desk and she followed, matching his pace, her heels clacking on the tiled floor with every step.

"A vacancy just opened up in my Time Share so I'm taking a little unexpected vacation time," he began shuffling papers, stuffing some into a briefcase and others into drawers. "You'll have to make my excuses for me Hunnigan, my apologies." From the other side of the desk Hunnigan leaned over and slammed the case shut, just missing his fingers, resting her weight on her hands on top of it, and glaring at him over the rim of her glasses.

"Agent Kennedy," her voice was in that lethal tone, just above a whisper, "need I remind you that this is an issue of National Security and that you will be forced to answer for your actions during this critical period?" Leon leaned down, his own hands on the edge of his desk, putting his face almost touching hers, answering her in her own tone.

"Then it's a good thing I don't answer to you, isn't it?" he could see himself in the reflection of her lenses, the hard set of his jaw, the close line of his brows. "I'm not a goddamn robot, as much as you may see me that way. And if you, and that room full of stuff-shirt assholes back there think that after all the utter shit I've been through for them that they can turn around and tell me what I can and cannot do you've got another thing coming." He stood up and resumed shuffling and filing, slamming a drawer shut, which in turn caused a few heads to swivel in their direction.

He thought of all the endless resources, the dozens of people who had worked around the clock in this room when he'd been missing in Spain. With Chris gone there was just Claire, and Jill, and the other few, scattered members of the Old Gang and their failing contacts.

"This isn't an '_issue of National Security'_," he mocked her tone, "this is an issue of _my fucking life_, Ingrid, something that these people nearly get taken away from me every time I have to deal with them."

"I can't cover for you on this Leon,"

"Good, I don't want you to." She sighed, and threw her hands up in a gesture of defeat as he grabbed his briefcase and walked out, all the heads turning their gaze to follow him out the door, which clanged shut ominously behind him. Ingrid Hunnigan took a deep breath, smoothed down her skirt, and put her game-face back on. _Typical Kennedy_.

Leon was exhausted by the time the cab dropped him off in front of Claire's apartment building. The hours spent alternately seething with rage or almost sick with anxiety had left him drained, both physically and mentally. He'd rushed to the airport and paid out the arse for the last seat on the next plane out, then spent the next few hours stuck, helpless, in the air, drumming his fingers on the arm of his seat, very much to the dismay of the very matronly, elderly woman beside him.

But the air outside the apartment was cool and both soothing and invigorating. A young couple was leaving for their evening walk with their dog and Leon jogged up to catch the door before it locked closed again.

The building was nice; well lit and quiet, and in a good neighborhood. A clear testament to the leaps and bounds Claire had made in regaining some of her life. Quiet, routine, serene – words that seem to emanate from the space, so different from the years he knew she'd been forced to spend in near squalor. Leon hoped it wasn't all coming to an end again already. He knocked lightly on the door, and only had to wait a moment before a pale, drawn face peered out at him from the crack the chain allowed.

"Hey," he said, suddenly wishing he'd taken the time to straighten his tie and smooth down his hair. Too late now. Claire closed the door again and he heard the chain slide open and then there she was, lit only by the light in the hallway – the apartment was completely dark within.

"You didn't have to come Leon, really."

"Yes I did. And even if I didn't, I'm here now so it doesn't matter."

"I'm a big girl now,"

"I know you are." She looked like she wanted to roll her eyes at him but couldn't muster the effort. He followed her into the dark entranceway, light pouring in from the huge windows in the main sitting area. Claire padded over to the couch, her bare feet making soft sounds on the hardwood floor, followed by the soft tapping of his shoes. She sat down, but it only seemed to make her more irritated, so she stood again almost immediately and began to pace.

Scattered on the coffee table Leon could see the evidence of all the ways she'd tried to comfort herself: a bar of dark chocolate still mostly intact, a bottle of vodka, her Discman, the phone, a photo album, and finally, a gun. Leon didn't have to even look at it to know it would be her brother's S.T.A.R.S.-issue sidearm. "Look, Claire-"

"It's just, I…" they both spoke at the same time and Leon backed off, sitting on the couch as she looked out the window, her back turned to him. In all the years he'd known her, in all the events they'd been through together, he had never seen her this distraught, this helpless.

Because 'distraught' and 'helpless' were just two words that had nothing in common with strong, proud, brave Claire Redfield.

He had never seen her cry. Of course not.

When Sherry had been taken he'd been 500 miles away in boot camp, and when she'd broken down in her grief over Steve it had been Chris' job to pick up the pieces. Leon's job had been to stand around on the outskirts, feeling awkward, and then, usually, getting sent away on some errand by Barry. But now there was no Chris, there was only him. And he had the sinking feeling he was very quickly going to find out what it was to see what Claire looked like without her defenses. Leon swallowed, suddenly nervous.

"He left me alone again, and I don't know what to do this time," her voice cracked thickly on the last word and he was on his feet in an instant, at her side, pulling her into his chest. "I'm scared Leon, I'm really scared this time. I can't…" He could hear her struggling with composure and felt her hands fist themselves into his shirt. "I just can't do it all over again!" He wrapped his arms more tightly around her slight, trembling frame, stroking a hand up and down her back in what he hoped was a soothing gesture, and resting his cheek on her crown.

"It's okay, I'm here," he said softly, "I'll take care of you. It won't have to be like last time." Leon didn't know how he would survive if it were. He felt her quivering with the effort to stay quiet and then the sudden sharp, jarring heaves of sobbing as she wrapped her arms tightly around his neck, burying her hot, wet face in his shirtfront.

"I just don't want to be alone," she choked out, already struggling to regain her composure, and he pulled her as close as he could, almost crushing her in the ferocity of his embrace.

"I won't leave you," he whispered raggedly, "I swear to God I won't leave you alone." He pulled back, cupping her face in his nervously sweating hands, his callused fingertips and soft palms guiding her gaze up to his. "We'll find him, Claire, I promise." She nodded weakly, but her face crumpled again and she looked away, wiping a hand delicately against her nose. Leon kissed her forehead, and then after, she had a moment to steady herself a bit, guided her toward the bedroom.

"You should try and get some sleep. We'll start first thing in the morning," he said, easing her down onto the edge of the bed. It was darker in here, the drapes pulled tightly shut, but their eyes were well adjusted from the din of the other room. "I'll just crash on the couch, maybe raid your fridge a little, if you even have anything worthwhile in there for once," he gave her a weak smile, barely visible in the darkness. But as he got up to give her some privacy, Claire kept hold of his hand.

"Leon, wait - please stay," her voice was rough, and thick, and even if he couldn't see her wet, pleading eyes he knew he couldn't deny her. They'd shared a bed, out of necessity and occasionally other motives, plenty of times over the years, but Leon knew from experience that it was a dangerous game – it always felt too right, too easy in the morning.

Too tempting.

But she was his friend, his best friend, and she was in pain, and as hopeless and pathetic as he knew it was, he would have done anything for her in those black hours. So he stripped off his jacket, tie, and overshirt, pulled off his shoes, socks, and belt, and climbed into bed beside her in his slacks and short-sleeved undershirt, chastely separating them by his clothing and the blanket. This was definitely not an appropriate time to give his body, half-mad with testosterone and exhaustion, any room for error.

"I just feel safer when you're around," Claire said, her voice quiet with the same tiredness he could feel in his own bones, her body turned towards his as he stared up at the darkness of the room around him.

_Well_ Leon thought to himself, _at least that makes one of us_.


	7. Chapter 7

Consciousness came back to Chris slowly, but surprisingly painlessly. It began with a soft hiss at the edge of his hearing, working its way into a full roar all around him. He could feel something cool and smooth beneath his cheek and against his arm where it was trapped beneath his body. He opened his eyes a crack and pushed himself into a sitting position, his back against one side of the tub and his legs draped over the other, leaning over to turn off the faucet. The water didn't even feel cold anymore as it rained over his skin, though he could feel the trace of every rivulet across his body. He leaned back, breathing deeply.

The room smelled differently now, the aromatic bite of ammonium-based cleaning products stinging his nose; apparently it wasn't such a dive after all. The tiny bathroom seemed brighter too, illuminating every fine detail of the cracked linoleum in blue-tinged, fluorescent clarity.

He could hear the silence in the air, feel the air pressure against his eardrums. It felt like he'd just stepped off an eight hour flight. But he could hear smaller sounds too, like the trickle of water somewhere deeper in the pipes, a television set in some other suite, or the whisper of air through his nose. Slowly, he eased himself into a standing position, stripping out of his sopping clothes and hanging them over the curtain-rail. Although the fabric was completely drenched with freezing water, and his skin felt clammy with moisture, he didn't feel chilled at all. In fact, from what he could see and feel of his body he felt fine; everything seemed to be in working order. Perhaps the virus had simply worked itself out of his body, victim to a healthy immune system?

But it was still with a nervous breath that he stepped towards the mirror, unsure of what disfiguring mutations might have manifested themselves. Gripping the edges of the counter in his hands, he lifted his head to face the mirror, letting out a deep sigh of relief at what he saw. The same sharp features and deep blue eyes he was familiar with stared back out at him, the same dark hair wet and matted to his head, the same bristling stubble covering his jaw. He leaned closer, his eyes darting from left to right over their reflections, reassuring him that there really weren't yellowed cat-eyes glaring at him from his own reflection.

Chris stepped back, looking over his body. Everything was the _same_. Had the injection done anything at all, or had Mary Vlosky just sent him for a loop? Or maybe she'd simply engineered a better virus with the use of more complete research and advanced technology. He headed back to the bedroom, intending to find out.

On the dresser lay the leather gun and knife holster he never left home without. He pulled the knife out of its sheath, the sharpened metal glinting even in the dim light of the room. Sitting down on the edge of the bed, Chris rang a finger along the edge, reassuring himself that the blade – the same one he had carried with him since that night at the Spencer Mansion – was still free of any chips or cracks. Then, holding out his left hand, he ran the knife over his forearm, easily splitting the skin.

Blood swelled out of the wound, threatening to roll off his arm onto the carpet, but before the first drop could fall, something strange happened. The cut, although small and fairly shallow, had already started to close itself up, the skin drawing itself back together. Chris wiped at the rest of the blood with his fingertips, and as he examined the dark smear he felt a rush surge through his body.

_Power_.

He finally understood what it was like to look back at the rest of humanity and think _I am something greater_. His features twisted themselves into a smile as he stood up and began rummaging through his bag, pulling out the change of clothes he'd packed. He pulled the garments on quickly, returning the knife to its sheath and slipping into the holster with ease. Opting to leave his soaking clothes behind, he grabbed his jacket and left, slamming the door on his way out. He turned back at the sound of wood cracking as it impacted the frame with a crash.

_This might take a little getting used to after all_, he thought to himself, taking the stairs down two at a time. There wasn't anymore time to waste.


	8. Chapter 8

Jill wondered at what point, exactly, she had stopped being surprised by Chris' random disappearances. She was sitting on the overstuffed couch in the living room of the condo she shared with the recently missing Redfield, a stack of papers on her lap. Jill wondered at what point, exactly, rifling through waste-paper baskets and trying to hack online banking PINs, instead of phone calls or post-it notes, had become the _modus operandi_ of her relationship. It felt wrong, and yet, there was something satisfying about doing _something_, anything other than sitting around, waiting for the next outbreak.

Rebecca sat in an armchair across beside her, trying to access Chris' credit card information to see if there were any leads there. Claire was alternately pacing the apartment, peering listlessly out the window, and phoning every contact they could think of, quiet and reserved and not at all like her usual vibrant self. The younger woman clearly hated inaction – so like her brother in that way – and resented the snail's pace they were forced to work at. As a civilian she was that much more frustrated by her lack of access.

Leon and Barry had been sent out to retrieved the mousey scientist they'd pulled out of the Umbrella facility and Chris had, according to a document she'd found shoved in the false-bottom of a drawer, been putting up in an apartment near the S.T.A.R.S. HQ. The fact that she might somehow be involved in all of this had actually been Rebecca's idea initially, but with no evidence they had originally been forced to abandon the idea. Barry, with his non-threatening, fatherly demeanour, and Leon, with his All-American, boy-next-door good-looks and his Government credentials had been nominated to go, the rest of them looking for any lead in the mean time.

Jill sat back against the couch. Had it already been two days since Chris had come home, made dinner, and then spent half the night sweetly loving her until they'd both fallen asleep in a tangle of heavy, exhausted limbs and blankets? It had almost seemed too good to be true at the time, but Jill, sated with fine food, wine, and sex, had attributed her niggling anxiety to the fact that it had been far too long since they had been able to enjoy themselves like that – like normal people who didn't spend their spare time taking down multi-national pharmaceutical corporations.

Wrong.

She wanted to be mad, she really did. She looked at Rebecca, rubbing her eyes with exhaustion, and Claire, anxiously biting a fingernail as she flipped through a black telephone directory, and she wanted to shake Chris Redfield until his brain concussed against his skull. She wanted to hate him for breaking every promise he'd made since he'd dragged himself and his sister back from Antarctica. But she knew him too well, understood his mind and how he justified things to himself. He was one of the most selfless men she had ever known, and that's what made it so hard not to go out and put a few rounds through his knees until he learned how to stay put. He pulled this kind of shit to protect the people he cared about, not hurt them, but had failed to learn that none of the people he had surrounded himself with were the type to sit back and wait while he raked himself over the coals.

A knock sounded lightly at the door and all three women jumped in unison, hands reaching instinctively for the nearest weapon, be it a kitchen knife, a berretta, or a steel paperweight.

"That must be them," she said, settling her nerves with a deep breath and walking towards the door. Sure enough, a glace at the peephole revealed Barry and Leon, the petite woman sandwiched between them, all of them looking equally irritable and miserable. She flipped the locks and ushered them through to the living room where Claire and Rebecca sat in their respective places. She saw disappointment flicker over Claire's face briefly before settling back into grim determination, giving Leon a wry twist of her lips which he returned with a one-armed shrug. Jill had been slightly surprised to see the blonde accompanying Claire on her doorstep that morning and, although he had looked in need of a few extra hours sleep then, he looked a significantly worse for the wear now. Contrary to the fact that he'd asked to use their iron before they left, wrinkles had managed work their way back into every square inch of fabric covering his body. Jill surmised that some of Chris' clothes would probably fit him if it came down to it, but if she remembered anything about Leon Scott Kennedy, it was his pride – almost up to Redfield standards at times.

They all seated themselves around the dining room table, Mary given Chris' place at the head of the table with Jill across from her, Barry and Rebecca, Leon and Claire seated along the sides.

"So, I'm not exactly sure what this is about but, considering you are all apparently law officers of one kind or another, I'd just like to ask about how legal coercing someone like this is," Mary started, the overhead pendant lamp above the table casting deep shadows under her wary eyes.

"I think you know exactly what this is about, and I think you'd better start talking," that was Claire, her knuckles white where she'd folded her hands on the table. During her eyes on the run from Umbrella she had developed rather _persuasive_ techniques of extracting information from people just like the one sitting at the head of the table - and hadn't lost any of the nerve to use them in the years since.

"Look," the smaller girl shrugged, eyes darting around the table, "if your Captain feels inspired to take a sudden, private vacation, I don't really see how that's my problem," she finished coolly.

"I'm going to make it your problem in about ten fucking seconds," Claire stood up suddenly, her chair skittering out behind her. Leon cleared his throat quietly, holding up a hand and giving Claire a look that said 'let _me_ handle this". The younger Redfield complied, but shot the Government agent one of the nastiest looks Jill had ever seen cross her youthful features.

"Look, we can certainly appreciate your point of view and your hesitation. But, you have to understand that Captain Redfield is a very close personal friend of everyone in this room, and I think you can recognize that, given his line of work, we do have reason to be concerned." Leon's voice was silky and soothing; years of Government training hadn't been wasted on him

"And why should I know anything about a police Captain I haven't seen in six months?"

"That's a lie," came Jill's reply, hard and cold as she stared stone-faced across the table. "We know he's been paying your rent for the past few months. So, if he's covering your expenses, what, exactly, are you doing for him?"

Mary looked paler, somewhat shaken at being caught so blatantly in her lie, but recovered smoothly.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" she replied with an obviously unpractised coy smile.

Leon shifted his weight, leaning forward and broadening his shoulders as much as possible, making himself as physically intimidating as he could be.She shifted slightly back in her chair, but raised her chin to meet his eyes.

"Do _not_ play games here little girl," he spoke clearly, with a cold, steel edge in his voice. "You are _way_ out of your league."

"Why are you protecting him?" Rebecca's clear, sweet voice cut through the tension. "Why won't you just tell us?"

"Why should I? If he wanted you to know, he would have told you."

"Do you feel obligated to him? Are you worried that you won't have a place to go if he cuts you off? If you help us, we can help you."

"I've heard that before, not so long ago, and look where it's gotten me."

"If you need protection, we can find a safe place for you. We've helped a lot of other Umbrella personnel disappear into the woodwork," Barry said, resting his forearms on the tabletop. All eyes turned towards her, from Leon's piercing blue ones on her left, to Rebecca's calm green ones on her right. Mary sighed, seeming to crumple physically.

"Honestly, what do you think he wanted with someone like me? What use could I possibly have to someone like him?" The room was silent. A second slowly ticked by on the wall-clock.

"A virus," Rebecca's voice was soft, her statement confirmed by Mary's averted eyes. The room stood in shocked silence for a moment.

"Where is he now?" Leon asked, his voice less harsh than before.

"I don't know, I swear. I haven't seen him in almost a week."

"Wesker," heads spun to the other end of the table to Jill. "He's gone after Wesker."

"But where?"

"By himself?"

"Jesus."

"Who is Wesker?" Mary's question penetrated the flurry of confusion and all heads swung back in her direction, all faces awash with disbelief.

"The man you work for," said Claire, who had been stonily silent up to that point. The smaller woman's face twisted with confusion, but Claire didn't wait for her to ask for clarification. "Where is Umbrella headquarters? And I swear, if you send us on a wild-goose chase I will-"

"Switzerland," Mary said, forestalling the need for Claire to finish her threat. The single word was enough to launch everyone into a whirlwind of action. Mary sat baffled at the table, watching the commotion around her. "What's going on?"

Leon paused, covering the receiver of his cellphone with his hand, the hold-music of an airline trickling out of the earpiece.

"We're going on a little adventure. Pack your bags – it wouldn't be the same without you."

As he turned around, Mary stared after him, mouth gaping, thinking to herself that, maybe, she would have been better off with the Hunters after all.


	9. Chapter 9

Whatever Chris had been expecting from the headquarters of the new Umbrella front company, it hadn't been this. The impressively built structure, located in a secluded spot, just a few miles from Zürich, was quite empty, but appeared to have been recently vacated. The front doors had been unlocked, and the expansive lobby was quiet and dark, the only sounds audible the quiet hum of computers on standby and the soft tap of Chris' own boots.

While the offices of the old Umbrella had been gaudily decorated in an elaborate abomination of baroque and rococo design, this building was modern and minimalist. Geometric shapes and right angles dominated the room, and everything was of the finest material; dark marble floors, counters and pillars, stainless steel accoutrements and glass were everywhere. The mansions of the old Umbrella had welcomed visitors with candlelight; this new home of nightmares was lit by huge banks of windows which let in the fading light of evening dusk and the scenic landscape just outside. Even with the lively green just a few feet away, the overall effect was still so chilling that Chris wondered if Wesker had designed the place himself.

Chris moved quietly though the space, his heightened sense of hearing detecting no disturbances in the tomb-like silence. At the rear of the lobby stood a bank of elevators and as he approached, the door of one slid open, whisper quiet on its track. Surprised, Chris glanced around, but it was impossible to see the location of any cameras in the shadowed corners of the room. Barely hesitating, he stepped inside, the doors closing automatically behind him and the car beginning to descend without his even having to touch a button. This was what he was here for after all, and there was no turning back.

The elevator moved quickly and when the doors opened he was at last faced with a familiar sight. In front of him was a straight hallway painted entirely white and brilliantly lit – clearly a laboratory of some kind. Several reinforced doors branched off from the main corridor, but no sounds could be heard from behind them, not even the normal rustle of live specimens. At the end of the hall, another door slid open, revealing a dark room beyond. As he walked towards it, Chris was overwhelmed by the feeling that he was marching right into the heart of the lion's den - the same feeling that had haunted his every action since the mansion incident. But he was confident now, and with every step his heartbeat retained the same steady pace it had never deviated from since he had injected himself.

In the few days between then and now he had taken a little time to push the limits of his new abilities, knowing that every delay would bring Jill and the others he cared most about into this very same danger. He wasn't a fool and, he knew, neither were they; it wouldn't take them long to piece things together and come after him. Even now there were likely closer than he would care to imagine. The tests he had inflicted on himself had only bolstered his confidence; his strength, agility, and stamina were easily enough to compete with what Wesker had thrown at him in Antarctica, and he would need every advantage he could muster to deal with Wesker in his own territory.

From the doorway Chris surveyed the room. It was a large, empty space, with bare concrete walls. The dim room was lit by grated incandescent emergency lighting spaced evenly along the top of the wall, but there was no other ornamentation, no furniture – nothing to be used to an advantage, nothing to get in the way. In the centre of the room, with his bare hands clasped behind his back, stood the man, the _monster_, Chris had dreamed of confronting for almost ten years.

Wesker turned to face him, his features still unchanged from the last time they'd seen each other, the red-gold cat eyes faintly glowing in the dim light, pale skin shining where it was exposed above his collar and rolled-up cuffs.

"Chris, you've finally come."

"Déjà vu," Chris stepped into the room, slipping off his jacket, leaving him in his usual, plain S.T.A.R.S.-issue shirt. It was tradition after all. The adrenaline was humming through his veins already, heightening his senses even further. Wesker eyed him with a smirk,

"It's nice to see some things never change,"

"I think you'll find our story has a pretty different ending this time. You're going to stay dead this time."

Wesker laughed, that same grating, faintly maniacal laugh, "you think so, do you? I was wondering how long it would take you to extract the information from her – poor little Mary Volsky, the girl who lived. I'm very pleased with both of you Chris, she was definitely the best little investment I've made lately."

Chris didn't allow himself to react, by now he was plenty used to playing Wesker's game. The element of surprise would be crucial to whoever hoped to gain the upper hand. But he was confused; he hadn't actually gleaned much information from Mary, her main use to him had been her skills as a virologist…

"After all, I couldn't make it too easy for you. You still don't understand Chris, do you? This is _my_ game, it always has been, and it _always_ will be. You never did understand this kind of power."

They were circling each other, so similar now, and yet so opposite, one dark where one was light, and one light where the other was dark. Their booted feet sounded softly on the concrete floor, shadows playing on their features as they moved.

"You're wrong Wesker, I understand _perfectly_," Chris said, and lunged.


	10. Chapter 10

Either her brother was getting slower, or Claire Redfield was getting faster; either way it was taking less and less time to track him down these days. The trail had hardly been cool or well concealed, and Mary Volsky had been quite cooperative once she'd had a little of the fear put into her. However, recklessness on Chris' part could only be seen as a bad sign; it either meant he didn't care if anyone came after him, or he knew he wouldn't be coming back. Neither of those thoughts were particularly reassuring to her as she tucked another magazine into her ammunition belt.

She looked around at everyone else piled into the innocuous looking van they'd rented for this little sojourn. Everyone had settled down to their tasks – Barry at the wheel with Jill navigating, map in hand; Rebecca in the back seat, double checking her mixing set; Leon leaning over the seat next to Claire's, briefing Mary in the most important parts of gun safety, and Mary looking suitably horrified and out of place. Of all of them, Leon, being a professional, was the most relaxed. Like a mother hen, he'd taken Mary under his wing over the past few days, making sure she knew what was going on and, at the very least, how to defend herself so one of them didn't always have to mind her. Personally, Claire could barely stand to look at the lump of a girl, but reasoned that it was Leon's nature to take care of weak, helpless, useless things. He was good at it, and, as he often said with a slight shrug and a little quirk to his lips, '_that's why they pay me the big bucks_'.

The van pulled up in front of a vacant, modern building, with no sign of any guards, office employees, or horribly mutated creatures, although there were fresh wheel marks in a patch of gravel in the parking lot. Everyone piled out into the lot, the surrounding forest surprisingly peaceful and calming. The building itself was fairly expansive, several stories high above ground with two distinct wings.

"Alright everyone, you know the drill. We're fairly sure he's in there somewhere, we just have to start looking," began Barry. "But it is an Umbrella headquarters, so you'll probably have to spend a bunch of time messing around with crests-"

"Or statues," added Jill.

"Or valves," said Leon.

"Or clocks," Claire threw in.

"I just hope no one has to play the piano," Rebecca said with a faint smile. Mary raised an eyebrow,

"Right. I'll be here with the van keeping an eye on things in case things start to go wrong." Although his will to fight had only grown over the years, time had taken its toll on Barry, and in situations like this he preferred to stay out of the direct line of fire. The remainder of the team nodded, checked their equipment one more time, and headed into the lobby.

The place was as deserted and silent as when Chris had walked through just a short time earlier. The elevators seemed to be a good starting point, but none of the buttons seemed to be responding, the high tech control panel flashing that a supervisor key was necessary operate the elevators after hours.

"What're the odds that one of those keys is in some desk somewhere upstairs?" Jill said, eyeing the stairwell clearly labelled "FIRE EXIT" with some chagrin. In the end, they decided their best option was to split into three groups to cover the most ground. Jill would start in the lobby, making sure they hadn't missed anything; Claire and Leon would check the second floor, leaving Rebecca and Mary with the third. If one group finished their area with no luck, they would move up to the next floor. If the past was any indication of the present, the really scary parts of the building, parts Chris Redfield seemed likely to be attracted to, would be in the basement, so access to the lower levels was a top priority.

Apparently the Umbrella employees hadn't left in any particular rush; offices were still tidy, files neatly or haphazardly arranged on desks depending on the occupant. Unfortunately, despite the organizational habits of some of the employees, most seemed able to remember to bring their keycards home at the end of the night. Closing another empty office door behind her, Rebecca glanced over at her companion, the beam of her flashlight flickering over her features. The other woman looked quite pale and was sweating heavily, even breathing a little harshly.

"Are you okay?" _Jesus_, Rebecca thought to herself, _it was only two flights of stairs_, but the eager medic inside her felt a little uneasy.

"Yea," Mary said, pressing the gloved palm of one hand into her eye, "I just don't feel well all of a sudden. I think this vest is making it hard to breathe," she motioned the other hand towards the Kevlar vest Jill had loaned her.

"Maybe you'd better just sit down for a minute and catch your breath. I'll leave the door open in case you need me, okay?" Mary nodded, slumping against the wall and sinking down to the floor. Clutching her head in her hands she barely heard Rebecca's light footsteps leave the hall over the sound of blood pounding in her ears. In her gut her organs were twisting and roiling, building up to a kind of acutely uncomfortable pressure. Soon she found herself gasping quietly for air, fighting the urge to faint, not wanting to slow the rest of the team down.

Just as she felt ready to slip past the plane of consciousness, something caught the edge of her attention. It was the faintest wisp of a scent, something a little sweet, and light, and on some level she realized that she was _starving_. She was so goddamn _ravenous_ that her guts were eating themselves up. But that smell, it was so good, so tempting, and she found herself pulling herself up and moving towards it. Quietly through the hallway, shutting the door silently behind her, and then quickly up, up, up the stairs to what must be one of the top floors. In her starvation some instinctual part of her brain had taken over and was guiding her actions toward their goal. At the top of the stairs she opened another door into another seemingly empty hallway, but this one was different. It was more active; lights were on, and someone could be heard working on a computer station behind one of the doors. Behind the door where that delicious smell was coming from. Mary walked towards the door, her feet feeling impossibly heavy on the ends of her legs, despite the lack of noise they made on the tile floor. She turned the handle with a click, revealing a dark room with a beautiful Asian woman working at a computer screen showing various security camera feeds of her companions. That irresistible smell seemed to be _radiating_ off of the woman, who had turned suddenly at the sound of the door and appeared to be reaching for some kind of weapon on the desk behind her.

"Who are you?" the voice was smooth and cool and very fitting of such an impeccably made up woman.

"H-huungrrrrrry," the garbled voice that erupted out of Mary's throat was hardly recognizable. The woman moved away from the desk, pushing the chair out behind her as Mary took a lurching step toward her. The office was small, an l-shaped desk separating the two adversaries as well as the prey from her exit. The woman made a spry leap onto the desk and then quickly leapt again, grasping an exposed length of pipe in the ceiling and using it to swing herself over Mary's head. Releasing her grip at the highest point of her arc through the air, Ada almost made it through the doorway before a clammy hand gripped solidly onto her ankle. The strength of the grip belied the small stature of her opponent who, she could see in the light of the hallway, had the gaunt, jaundiced look of someone severely ill. She'd seen the woman enter with the others on the security tapes, but hadn't noticed anything strange about her behaviour. Mary pulled the other woman towards her with unusual ease, oblivious to the several hard, direct hits Ada delivered on her attacker's face and arms with her booted feet, her gun clattering uselessly on the floor behind her.

It wasn't until the smaller girl had pulled Ada down, under the table, on a face-to-face level that the older woman allowed herself to start to panic. The girl was clearly infected with something, so this must be some little pet of Wesker's that he'd let out to play. And those unfortunate souls who found themselves in the position of plaything for Wesker's playthings had a shockingly low survival rate – the man was nothing if not accurate and thorough.

Mary pulled herself into a kneeling position crouched over her opponent's chest, pulling her hair to twist her head in a way that exposed the long line of her neck. That instinctual part of her was almost orgasmic at the thought of the coming feed. Ada still struggled beneath her, but the girl was impossibly heavy, like an iron weight pressing on her lungs, her blows bouncing uselessly off skin even as it started to bruise. In a last effort, Ada let out a chilling scream as she felt dull, omnivorous teeth press into her neck, tearing painfully into her flesh.

The first gush of blood pouring into her mouth sent an intense wave of relief through Mary's diseased brain. She choked mouthfuls warm flesh down her throat, barely stopping to breathe, barely chewing. That heavenly _smell_ was all around her now, inside her, calming her, satisfying her on some deep, inner level. For the first time in months, she felt _good_.

Somewhere, somehow, she heard the sound of someone calling her name from a distance, along with the echoing pound of booted feet on metal stairs. Looking up at the room around her, she came back to herself with a profound sense of confusion – this wasn't the hallway she'd passed out in. She went to brush the hair out of her eyes when she noticed that her hands were covered in blood, well pasts the wrists. Taking a look down, she gasped at the torn, devoured remains underneath her and felt hot bile rise in her throat. Crawling off and over to the side of the desk, she retched, expelling huge, dark chunks of flesh that made a nauseating sound as they hit the tile floor. Realization hit her like a brick wall, gasping sobs wracking her body almost instantly.

Running footsteps sounded in the hall, and then there was someone, Rebecca, beside her, asking if she was alright. Mary just shook her head, whispering "no, no, no" in between her sobs. Claire took one look at the face of the mangled body half dragged under the desk and froze, eyes wide, heart leaping up her throat. She felt Leon move beside her and look down, his posture going rigid. Glancing over she saw the tightness of his jaw and the faraway look in his eyes and could barely restrain herself from reaching out to comfort him. She knew he felt the loss of everyone he'd ever known as a personal failure, although over the years his ability to bury his emotions had improved significantly. He rounded on Mary where she was crouched down with Rebecca, his blue eyes intense,

"What the fuck are you?" he asked sharply, his voice very nearly a growl. Mary looked up at him, her bloodstained hands spread in front of her.

"_I don't know!_" she screamed, her expression one of sheer anguish. Claire looked away, her eyes catching some thing shining on the desk, half covered by strewn papers. She pulled it out and saw it was a keycard, one with the highest level of security access.

"I don't believe you," Leon spat with such ferocity that Rebecca stepped aside, not wanting to get caught in a crossfire. Claire cleared her throat, drawing all eyes back to her as she held up the keycard,

"I think it's time for us to head downstairs," she said quietly, and moved out the door, Rebecca a half a step behind. What had happened was sick and twisted, but there were still other issues to be dealt with. Leon grabbed Mary's arm with a bruising grip and hauled her to her feet, dragging her behind him. She stumbled along, her body suddenly exhausted.

"Why?" she asked in a whisper, shrinking back as far as she could as he turned back to her, his eyes blazing with unexpressed grief.

"I'm not finished with you yet," he said simply, and shoved her ahead of him into the elevator.


	11. Chapter 11

The look of shock that flashed over Wesker's face as Chris lunged for his throat was worth every hour of anxiety, every sleepless night Chris had endured over the past years. The look of indescribable rage that replaced it, marring the statuesque features and twisting them into something horrible was even better.

Despite his surprise, Wesker recovered quickly, twisting out of the grip with a still unfamiliar strength before Chris had an opportunity to really grab on.

"So Chris, you've finally come around then?" Wesker's voice was calm once more when he spoke, his mouth still in that infuriating, self-assured smile. "I have to admit, I still feel a little pride, even now."

"Sorry to disappoint Wesker, but you don't have a great track record of predicting my actions to begin with. But don't worry about it, it's not something you're going to have to worry about for much longer," the men circled each other in the closed, dark space. Chris could feel a kind of blinding anger threatening to overtake his conscious with every pulse-beat. He mentally shook himself, reminding every part of his psyche to stay focused in the moment.

"Ha-ha-ha! We shall see," Wesker moved next, trying to force him back against the corner, landing several powerful blows that almost had Chris staggering, even despite his enhanced state. Chris felt his back graze against the wall and leaned into it, using it as a brace to push the older man away from him. Wesker stepped back, using his arms to counterbalance the motion, and Chris took the opportunity to strike him hard across the face, hard enough to open a small split on his lip through which a tiny dribble of blood flowed out.

Everything changed with the drawing of that first blood. Chris could smell it in the air, and although the dark red smear across the lips of his enemy was somehow appealing, it filled the air with a rank smell. It smelled _bad_. It smelled _sick_, and that made him angrier. He could feel his rage now with every heartbeat, hammering through his body until it felt like it would burst out his fingertips.

hateHATEhateHATEhateHATEhateHATEhate

He could see the same expression in Wesker's golden eyes, hear it in the sharp, nasal inhale of his breath. Wesker moved again, this time knocking Chris to the floor, pinning him there with a titanium grip around his throat, his fingers digging deeply into his flesh to the point where Chris felt his head might pop off his shoulders. He had moved so fast Chris had barely been able to see him, even with his enhanced vision. Straddling his chest, Wesker beat Chris across the face several times, until blood coated both his hand and Chris' face. In the dim light Chris could see the faint, inhuman glow to Wesker's eyes as the older man leaned in close, gripping his jaw tightly in his hand. When he spoke, his voice was a soft whisper, furious and terrifyingly calm.

"Now Chris," his tone was almost paternal, "I've thought about this for a long time, so it's going to be perfect. Now be a good boy, and watch as I tear out your self-righteous fucking heart and feed it to you." Wesker slammed his head against the floor for good measure.

With one hand pressed to his chest, Chris was sure Wesker could feel as his heart slammed itself against his ribcage, forcing a paralyzing fear through his system. He was losing his focus, his strategies and skills fading into a dark screen of instinct and something quieter, something more sinister even farther below the surface. He barely registered the motion as he somehow summoned the strength to free his arms, to shove Wesker off of his chest and scrabble with him on the concrete floor. Finally, he gained dominance and pulled himself on top of the older man, blood still dripping down his face and neck although the flow had diminished considerably. He was still barely aware as his gripped his hands into the surprisingly soft, perfectly blonde hair of his opponent and began to rhythmically bash his skull against the hard concrete floor, oblivious to the iron-like fingers that gouged at his face and neck, slowly weakening, and then, finally, going slack.

His own fingers grabbed numbly at the knife holster strapped to his shoulder, sliding the razor sharp blade out of its sheath and pressing it into the soft, white flesh of Wesker's neck, sawing through. He worked slowly, his muscles still not seeming to be totally under control, whispering under his breath the only piece of advice that had kept him sane in a few especially harrowing situations. His hands shook almost uncontrollably.

"Destroy the brain. Detach it from the rest of the nervous system. Destroy the brain. He won't come back. He can't come back."

Chris barely even registered there was someone else in the room until a pair of cool, clean hands were wrestling the knife out of his slippery grasp.

"Stop it!" a young voice shrieked, "you can't do this!" Chris looked up into the teary, bright blue eyes of a young blonde woman. She looked vaguely familiar, but in his current state he couldn't remember from where.

"I _am_ doing this. Give me back my knife," he tried to gently tug the knife out of her grip, but her grasp was surprisingly strong for someone of her age and stature. He pulled a little harder, but her grip remained firm, her eyes blazing fiercely and almost preternatural in colour. He could feel Wesker's body still twitching slightly underneath him – whatever Birkin had concocted for him was indeed impressive.

Then there was a rush of motion and bodies moving in behind them, maintaining a respectful, cautious distance.

"Chris?" he turned to face the voice, taking in the familiar form of his sister, flanked by his team mates and their entourage. Claire took one look at the bloodstained face of her brother with its barely withheld animalistic gaze, and the torn, battered body of Albert Wesker, half-sheltered by a young blonde and could barely stop the rise of bile in her throat. "Oh my God," she gagged, covering her mouth and turning away, feeling a familiar male body come up behind her, comforting and tucking her into the crook of his shoulder.

Chris let his wet grip slide off the knife handle, moving towards his sister, when he was stopped by curt word.

"Finish it," Leon said, holding out his own knife to replace the one the blonde had tossed into the corner of the room. "Finish it, or I will."

The jealous, possessive glare Chris gave him as he snatched the knife out of his hand was one Leon had never seen on the older man's features.

"Leon please," a small, high voice cut through the room, and all eyes turned to the young blonde woman. "Please don't let him do this,"

"…Sherry?" Leon's voice nearly stuck in his throat as he took in the small figure who had thrown her arms across Wesker's neck as a shield, his own arm sliding limply off Claire's shoulder to hang uselessly at his side.

"Please Leon. Help me," the voice was so familiar, still so like the little girl he'd had to leave alone at some nameless army base. From her position on the other side of Chris, Jill could see Leon falter for just an instant.

"Leon," her voice was clear and loud, "the _mission_." She used a word she thought would bring things back into scope for him. She made it a point not to look at Chris – someone had to keep their emotions out of this mess. He was alive, for now, that was enough.

"Right," Leon nodded, his expression become detached and blank once more. "You," he motioned to Mary who, despite everything, still followed along like a dazed, blank puppy, "move her out of the way."

Mary moved slowly, awkwardly, forcefully pulling Sherry away and wrapping her in a firm grip to hold against her struggles. Mary soothed the girl with soft, meaningless words as Chris bent to his task once more, the soft, wet sounds audible in the tomb-like space.

And then the words ran out, and no one said anything for a very long time.


	12. Chapter 12

The ride to the safe-house was long, crowded, and awkward. It hadn't taken long to download the contents of the several available databases, find, and then activate the self-destruct system and reduce the headquarters to a heap of smouldering rubble. And although he was glad to be away from that quiet, tomb-like building and everything that was held within it, Chris found himself almost wishing it had taken just a little longer.

He, Mary, and Sherry had been shoved into the back of the van like so much contaminated material, awkwardly trying not to press up against each other or make eye contact. Jill was up at the front with Barry, too far away to even reach out and touch, with Rebecca, Leon, and Claire squished into the middle row of seating. With all the extra equipment they'd brought and the addition of an extra person, it was a tight fit. Chris wondered if the stink of blood, sweat and dust was as apparent to everyone or if it was just him.

Barry pulled the van into the parking lot of the safe house Leon, with his extensive network of contacts, had set up for them – an abandoned rural school which had been equipped with the bare minimum of supplies. Weary bodies piled out of the van and headed inside, the doors creaking, but the school itself relatively clean and well maintained. What had once been the lobby and main office of the school had been renovated into a central lounge with several worn couches and small tables. Off to the right the classrooms had been equipped with the rudiments of sleeping chambers, and to the right were all the other important rooms, including a kitchen, communications room, infirmary, and etc.

Using the quiet that followed as people began to disperse, Claire rounded on Mary, trapping her against the back of an old couch.

"I don't care what you are, but you had better fucking fix him or I swear to God, virus or no, I will make your life a hell. A _painful_ one." Mary looked back at her wide-eyed, blood still caked across her face and hands. In a move which surprised everyone, she forcefully pushed the older girl away from her, creating a bubble of furious isolation around her.

"You think I did this to myself, don't you? Don't you?! You all think that I would do this to _myself_!" her voice was rising it pitch and volume as she began to gesture with her hands. "Why would I do that?" Claire backed away as everyone gave her an even wider berth. "Why would I want to live forever in a world that has never done anything but shit on me?! _Why would I want that?!_ " Mary shook her head, a twisted, sad little smile twitching at the corner of her lips, her voice quivering with anger. "No, I'm not the one who _begged_ for this, am I Captain?" She turned to face Chris, "why don't you tell them how you came to me and _threatened_ me and forced me to do this for you? _I_ am the victim here, and _you_ are the monster Redfield, I mean Jesus Christ what the fuck did you do to that man?"

"She's right Chris," Claire's voice remained monotone as she forced it out between clenched teeth. The siblings stood only a few feet from each other, but the distance between them was fathomless. "You've made yourself into the very thing you wanted to destroy – so what have you really accomplished?"

"Albert Wesker was a monster long before he ever injected himself" Chris' eyes, so like those of his sister, blazed furiously back at her, his voice a mixture of accusation and threat. "So don't you _ever_ fucking compare me to him."

"Whatever," Claire turned on her heel and stalked down the hallway towards one of the 'bedrooms. Chris made to follow her, but Jill stopped him with a hand on his arm.

"Chris, just let her go for now. It's going to take time." Chris, never one to take a slight lightly, shrugged his arm out from under her hand and stalked away in the opposite direction, slamming a door somewhere down the hall.

Everyone else slowly dissipated out of the main area, finding a quiet space to recover and collect their thoughts in private. Finally, Mary and Sherry were the last left, each feeling equally as out of place as the other.

"You probably won't bruise much," Sherry said quietly, picking absently at the weave of one of the tacky old couches.

"Excuse me?" Mary's voice was still shaky as she continued to rub at the stains on her hands. Sherry guessed she hadn't seen her reflection clearly yet – crusted blood and other accoutrements were still stuck to her face and hair.

"I saw the way he was muscling you around back there. But you probably won't bruise much, if at all."

"How would you know?" the question was half accusatory, half resigned.

"I know what you have. I helped create it."

"But you're so…young." Sherry just shrugged in reply.

"I can help you," she offered, coming around the couch to stand closer to Mary, trying not to inhale the noxious smell radiating off of her.

"Why would you bother?"

"We have to stick together now, people like us," Sherry felt another surge of grief grip at her stomach, twisting and cramping her guts. It was the same thing Albert had said to placate her when she'd been feeling particularly surly or depressed. The image of him sprawled helplessly on the floor, his muscles twitching and straining as he was butchered alive filled her with a rage so deep she couldn't yet begin to comprehend it. Mary nodded

"I think you might be right," she said simply and took her leave, dragging her body heavily towards the nearest shower. Sherry, left alone, sat limply in the nearest armchair, pulling her knees up and wrapped around her legs and stared out towards where the sun was beginning to set. It was going to be a long night, but that was fine – it was going to take a long time to put her thoughts in order.


	13. Chapter 13

_Author's Note: This chapter is dedicated to the lovely Eris - I hope it's worth the wait!_

Looking down the empty hallway, evening sunlight pouring in through the open doors on one side of the hall, it was easy to see which room Claire had hidden herself in. The black shadow of the closed door on the cracked tile floor was an ominous warning to those who dared approach it. Leon knocked quietly on the door, not wanting to draw too much attention from the rest of the team scattered about the facility. Not hearing a reply, he cautiously tried the knob, opening it slowly, free hand ready to block any blunt instruments that might be sailing in his direction. Old habits die hard.

Claire was leaning up against the bank of windows which comprised one wall of the converted classroom. In between Leon at the door and Claire at the window were half a dozen neatly made cots, all arranged into two orderly rows running the length of the room. Although he hadn't seen it often, Leon recognized the look on Claire's face and knew it was a dangerous one, somewhere in between rage and total, heartbreaking desperation. He approached cautiously, leaning a shoulder against the opposite edge of the window frame.

"Hey," he said casually, looking out at the overgrown playground and school yard. It was haunting to see the rusted out equipment, and yet somehow calming to see nature reclaiming the space.

"Leave me alone Leon. I don't want you here," Claire's voice wasn't angry, just quiet and resigned.

"Since when do you ever get what you want?" Leon joked lightly, glancing over at her. The fading light illuminated her hair in a red blaze and highlighted the grey cast of her skin, as well as the dark circles under her eyes. He knew she hadn't slept much in the past few days – he'd heard her anxiously pacing in her room as he lay awake in his.

"Don't remind me," she answered flatly, resting her forehead against the glass with a quiet thud. There was a dark smudge of something on her forehead where she'd brushed her bangs away at some point during the day.

"Hey c'mon," he reached out and turned her towards him by her shoulders, trying to pull her into an embrace, "don't do this. You have to stay optimistic-" Claire pushed him back with a shove before he could get too close.

"Don't feed me your government-issued bullshit Leon. I don't want to hear it," she snapped at him.

"Claire," he let her have some space, "I know what you're trying to do. You're trying to shut everyone out so you can't get hurt again. You don't want to go there, believe me."

"Seriously Leon, just shut up and get the fuck out. I can't deal with you – or anyone else – right now. I just want to be alone," she turned towards the window, her back facing him.

"Don't do this honey," he moved towards her again, but only a step. She could see the reflection of him in the window, "I know you're hurting, but you can't just shut down. It's not government-issued anything, I care about you and-" Claire cut him off by turning around suddenly, her lip twitching up into a sneer.

"You care? You _care_? You just saw the only woman you've ever claimed to love lying on the ground with her throat ripped out and you didn't bat an _eyelash_. I see what 'caring' means from you and I honestly don't think you can understand the first thing about what I'm going through."

It was a low blow and they both knew it. Leon felt something twitch in his jaw.

"You know what? Fine. Just… just forget it. I try to help, but I don't even know why I bother anymore." He walked away, footsteps sounding on the tile, slamming the door behind him. Claire let her head fall against the window with a resounding thunk.

"Shit!" the word echoed back at her off the glass.

Leon stalked through the facility looking for a quiet exit. He found one at the end of the hall in what had obviously once served as a kindergarten classroom, complete with its own secluded, fenced play area. Leaning against the chain-link fence which cordoned the area off from the rest of the playground, he took a deep breath, letting it hiss out between his teeth.

For the last few hours he had been resolutely trying to ignore what he'd seen in that facility. Maybe if he could forget what he had seen, he could forget what he had heard and smelled and _felt _and the whole event would just disappear from the historical record.

Ada had always been the one that he couldn't save, no matter how hard he tried. His failure had haunted him in the long years since Raccoon City, but knowing that she was alive somewhere, and then seeing her in Spain had sustained some kind of delusion that maybe someday he could save her. From what? Who knew. Herself, he supposed. And now there was no chance of that. Now, there were only regrets.

The sound of the door opening behind him almost made him jump. He turned his head to see Chris with one hand on the door handle.

"Sorry, I didn't know-" the older man started.

"Don't worry about it; I was just getting some air." Chris walked over and leaned against the fence a few feet away, his shirt stained and sticking to him with sweat and gore. He could smell the slight trace of vomit on Leon's shoes but found that, compared to the sweet smell of the fresh air and vegetation, it was only mildly unpleasant. Leon could see the same kind of exhaustion on Chris' face as he had on his sister's – it revealed itself in the same tightness around the eyes and lips in both Redfield siblings.

"Do you mind if I smoke?" Chris asked, pulling a battered pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. Leon shrugged indifferently, half turning away as Chris flipped open his lighter.

"Those things will kill you, you know," he joked, focusing his eyes on the peeling paint of a merry-go-round. Chris gave a half-hearted chuckle,

"You promise?"

A few moments passed in silence, the sky turning darker overhead. Out of the corner of his eye Chris studied Leon's profile. The younger man had grown up a lot from the scrawny, idealistic know-it-all he had been when they first met. Although they'd had their disagreements in the past, some of them quite heated, Chris could respect the man Leon had become.

"Kennedy, can I ask you to do something for me?"

"Sure." Although Leon wasn't sure the decision Chris had made was one he would have chosen for himself, he could appreciate that kind of sacrifice, and understood that lust for vengeance all too well.

"If things get…" he faltered to find the right world, "_bad_, for me – I mean. If things start to go wrong, I want you to take care of things. Of me." Chris paused, looking out into the forest beyond the overgrown yard. "I don't know what I'm capable of in this…state… but I know you won't…" he trailed off, unsure of how to delicately phrase _"hesitate in splattering my horribly infected brains all over the wall"_.

"I won't let my emotions get the best of me?" Leon helpfully provided, a slight bitterness in his voice.

"Something like that," Chris turned to face the younger man. Over the years he had always viewed Leon as the rookie he had started out as, but the clear eyes which met his own were those of an equal.

"It's not going to come to that," Leon said firmly. He pushed himself away from the fence, intending to leave the other Redfield with his thoughts. He had his hand on the door knob before Chris turned to him again.

"Thanks, Leon. I…I appreciate everything you've done." Leon gave a slight nod in acknowledgement and left, leaving Chris alone with the deepening night and his darkening thoughts.


	14. Chapter 14

As Leon stalked back down the hall, he noticed a few more of the classroom doors were closed, indicating that a few of the others had decided to call it a night

As Leon stalked back down the hall, he noticed more of the classroom doors were closed, indicating that a few of the others had decided to call it a night. He didn't bother knocking on the door to Claire's room, opening it quickly enough to cause her to turn around. She'd barely moved from the position she'd been in when he left.

"I thought I told you to get lost," her tone was chilly, but her voice was thick. The result was not convincing.

"I'm not going to let you do this to yourself," his long legs ate up the distance between them.

"Do what to myself, exactly?"

"Don't play games. You think it's easier to shut everything out? I'm telling you it's not."

"I've always done what I had to to get by – this isn't any different."

"It _is_ different, because you don't _have_ to do this."

"Maybe I want to." Leon reached out and grabbed her wrist firmly, forcing her to look at him.

"You really think you want this? You really think you want to live your life like a fucking machine? Look at me Claire, I couldn't even cry if I wanted to. I live my life like a goddamn robot – I'm hardly even a human being anymore."

"Don't say that,"

"It's true. It doesn't matter. But I don't want that for you."

"Leon, just stop," he could see her struggling to compose her features as she tried to writhe out of his grip, "I don't want you to see me like this." Claire kept her eyes averted, looking anywhere but his face.

"It's okay honey, I won't tell anyone," he said softly. Her resistance lessened, her posture slouching.

"I just want to know _why,_" she looked up at him, her eyes starting to water. "Why does he do these things? Why doesn't he trust me? _Why does this nightmare never end?!_" Leon pulled her close, her fingers burrowing into the fabric of his shirt.

"I don't know sweetheart, but we'll figure it out." Claire pressed her hot, wet face against his neck, struggling not to let all of the hurt and frustration completely dissolve her control. Had it really been so long since she'd stared down the undead masses without so much as a sniffle? Since she'd broken into Umbrella headquarters searching for her brother? She hated herself for becoming so weak. Despite what Leon said, she admired his unwavering composure, his ability to stay in control whatever the circumstance.

Her self-depreciating thoughts were lessened by the feel of Leon's large hands running down her back and smoothing her hair, His chest was warm and solid where it pressed against the front of her body. He smelled like he usually did - like sweat and gun-oil and metal, with just the faintest hint of soap underlying it all. He was familiar, warm, male, and just what she needed as an escape. A momentary indulgence in some instinctual pleasure to block out her current state of affairs.

Claire tilted her head slightly, pressing her lips to his tear-stained neck and then starting to move them up towards his jaw, and then his lips. He pulled away from her slightly, not wanting to recognize the almost instant reaction of his own body.

"What are you doing?"

"I need this," she leaned in to press another kiss along his jaw, noting that he didn't push her away again. "Don't tell me you couldn't use a little comfort." It wouldn't be the first time they'd sought comfort in each other, but it had been years since they'd had any serious physical contact.

"Are you sure this is what you want? I'm not sure that this-"

"God, do you ever shut up?" She pulled his face down to hers, pressing their lips together in a bruising kiss. Leon hesitated for only a heartbeat before kissing her back fully. She wasn't the only one in need of a distraction from the long night ahead.

He pulled the elastic out of her hair, burrowing his hands in the silken mass as she backed up, leading him away from the window. The back of her knee bumped against the nearest cot and she sunk onto the scratchy wool cover. Leon moved over top of her, supporting his weight on his forearms. He was incredibly hard and hoped that, on top of all of the horrible things that had happened in the past day, he wouldn't embarrass himself by getting too eager.

Claire arched her back, enjoying the press of her breasts against his chest, her nipples starting to peak. Leon worked his lips down her neck, pausing to unbuckle her belt. Claire smiled to herself; Leon could do a hundred things at once in the field, but he had never mastered the art of multi-tasking in bed. She tugged his shirt out of his pants, pulling it over his head and tossing it to the floor.

"You've changed," she said as she eyed his body. Amid the new muscle were a few scars she didn't recognize, some old, but a few relatively new ones. Leon gave her a grin, pushing up her shirt to kiss the soft, pale, salty skin of her stomach.

"You haven't," he replied, then ran his tongue in a long line down to the waist of her pants, the tips of his hair tickling her where they brushed across her sensitive skin. "You taste exactly the same."

The rest of their clothing quickly joined his shirt on the floor.

Their coupling was hard and fast and selfish, each taking whatever they could from the other in order to achieve their own ends. But there was also something familiar and generous in it, both finding a temporary peace together. Afterwards, they lay entwined on the narrow cot, the wool blanket half draped over their sweating bodies. Leon lay on his back, Claire pressed against his side with his arm wrapped tightly around her waist. What Claire loved about being with Leon was that it was never awkward afterwards. It never felt like a mistake. They both knew the rules and followed them.

"I remember the first time I ever heard you laugh," Claire said, running her fingers lightly over his chest.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. We were stuck in some little hideout with Sherry and Barry and he kept trying to tell her what to do – I think he was just missing his own kids. Anyway, they were outside and Sherry comes storming into the kitchen where we were looking over some map and does this hilarious, spot-on, impersonation of him. You just totally lost it – I thought you were going to rupture something or hyperventilate with all that gasping. You sounded like an unstable donkey," she teased.

"Hey! I was going through a rough time, okay? Give me a break! Besides," he lightly tickled her ribs, causing her to squirm, "I seem to remember a certain someone very nearly losing control of their bladder when Jill poured an entire bottle of ketchup over a certain brother's head at a barbeque." They both chuckled at the memory.

"We had some good times," she said quietly. The bad times didn't need to be mentioned to be remembered.

They lay in silence for a few moments, the room completely dark by now, with only a little light reflecting in through the windows. Leon thought of how good it felt to be here with her, thought of how good it was always felt, and forgot about all the rules and all the reasons why he shouldn't get attached.

"Marry me," the words slipped easily out of his mouth. Claire tensed and sat up, moving away from him.

"I thought we had been over this Leon," she said angrily, reaching for her pants on the floor. "Just because two people have sex, doesn't mean that they have to get married. I know you're not using me, you don't have to prove it."

"It's not like that," he grabbed her arm, turning her back around. "Claire, you're my best friend; there can't be anyone else for me." Claire looked at him and saw a startling vulnerability and honestly in his features.

"I can't do this right now, I really can't." She felt and sounded overwhelmed and Leon realised that, as usual, he had picked the least opportune moment.

"I know, I'm sorry," he gently tugged on her arm, trying to guide her back under the blanket. "Look, just forget I said anything. I won't let this change anything, I promise." Slowly, she curled back up under the blanket, leaning her head against his shoulder.

Neither one said anything for a long time and Leon assumed that she'd fallen asleep, her breathing regular and slow. He had almost allowed himself to drift off when she spoke again, barely a whisper.

"I didn't say no."

"What?" It took a moment for his brain to process what she said.

"I didn't say no. I just… need more time."

"Of course. Take as long as you need," he said, a hopeful smile twitching the corners of his mouth. They settled in comfortably together and, despite the unfamiliar creaks and rustles of the building, slept.


	15. Chapter 15

"Leon, stop it!" Sherry tried to block him from moving down the hall, but he shouldered her aside, dragging a panicking Mary along with him. She looked around wildly at the assembling crowd, at last finding a familiar face. "Claire, stop him!"

The sound of her name seemed to jolt Claire out of her shock. She had woken up so peacefully in the morning, the sun shining and Leon's arm wrapped around her waist, his chest warm against her back. He had seemed normal, content even, as they'd dressed and tried to scrounge up a breakfast slightly more satisfying than rations. No such luck. She should have known that he was always happiest when he had a plan, and this morning's plan was apparently sinister. Claire followed him down the hall, grabbing onto the material of his shirt to turn him around.

"What the hell are you doing?!" she half-yelled at him. He had stopped walking, but kept a tight grip on Mary's wrist, despite her best efforts to writhe and claw her way out of his grasp. "If you think hurting someone else is going to bring _her_ back, you're wrong."

"I know that," he said harshly. "That isn't what this is about. You know Umbrella as well as I do and if there are more of these _things_," he yanked on Mary's arm, pushing her in front of him, "then we need to know how to deal with them." Mary redoubled her efforts to evade his grasp and he had to pull her hard against his chest, pinning her arms down to keep her from bolting.

Everyone had heard the commotion of upraised voices and was gathering around them. Sherry pushed Claire out of the way to stand defiantly in front of Leon. She was so grown up, so different from the quiet young girl of so many years ago. The angry expression narrowing her eyes was one Leon couldn't recognize.

"If you want to fight someone, fight me you son of a bitch. She's not some test subject!"

"Was she more than a test subject to you?" Leon sneered back at her. "Don't bullshit me – her life was forfeit as soon as Wesker got his hands on her."

"That's not what you thought about Ada Wong," Sherry threw back at him. His lip curled into a snarl.

"Leon, come on. If you want to test her abilities there are other ways," Rebecca interjected in her quiet, rational voice.

"No, I'm going to do this my way," he turned to Sherry specifically, "and if you don't like it – don't watch. That goes for all of you." He shoved Mary ahead of him into the gymnasium of the school.

"Please don't do this," Mary huddled as far away from him as she could get in the empty room. "What I did before – I didn't know. It… it wasn't me. Please… this isn't something you want to do."

Claire felt bile rise in her throat as she watched him circle like a predator, more animal than human. She knew he'd changed since he'd entered into Government service, but this was unrecognizable. Rebecca, Barry, Jill, and Chris stood silently along the wall on either side of her. No one made a move to stop Leon – he'd made his warning clear enough. Each could see a shadow of themselves in what he was doing; they had all done things they weren't proud of in the name of grief. When it came down to it, Leon was a friend – he had been there at the beginning, and Mary was an Umbrella employee. She had engineered their nightmares, and now she was living one. They all were.

"What the fuck do you know about what I want, huh? Come on, you want this to end sooner than later don't you?"

"I won't fight you. You can't make me!" Mary had wedged herself into the corner, bracing herself with her hands on the wall behind. "WHY WON'T YOU HELP ME?!" She screamed at the spectators across the gym, tears pouring down her cheeks.

"Because you are _nothing_ to them," Leon spat at her. "You are the _enemy_." He braced himself against the wall above her, leaning over her. She sunk down away from him, visibly shaking, covering her head with her arms. "And you're pathetic too," Leon pushed himself away, turning around. He took a few steps away, thinking. If it was something that made her act against her conscience, how could he trigger it? On a whim he pulled his knife out of its sheath on his shoulder, pressing it against his forearm. Mary's eyes went wide,

"Don't do it," she shook her head. "Don't make me do it!"

"Shut up!" He ran the edge of the blade lightly along his skin, just enough to slit it. Warm, red blood pooled up immediately, trickling across his arm. Mary could smell it from where she was crouched in the corner and forced her hands over her nose and mouth to try keep out the scent. Across the gym, along the far wall, Chris could smell it too – a sweet, rich, tantalizing scent.

Leon stepped back as Mary started to gasp for air; in his experience you never knew what kind of organ might come flying out at you. Mary could feel blood pounding up to her head, making her feel nauseous and faint. She wrapped her arms around her body as tightly as possible, hanging on, trying to keep herself from slipping back into whatever it is she had been the night before.

"Get away!" she yelled as she felt something fade away in the back of her mind. The smell was different this time, deeper, brassier, but just as tempting - if not more so. Her organs were digesting themselves with hunger, but if she could just get the littlest _taste_ of that smell she knew she would feel better. She groaned as she pushed herself up from the floor, a little shaky on her feet. But even as she took a moment to rest against the coolness of the painted bricks, she could feel a surge of strength through her limbs like a pulse-beat. She groaned again, louder, and it was a sound that sent chills down Jill's spine.

"Oh shit," Jill heard someone beside her say.

"GIVE IT TO ME," Mary yelled, her voice unrecognizable, the words barely understandable.

"Come and get it you ugly bitch," Leon said, tossing his knife away.

Mary lunged at him clumsily and he easily sidestepped her grasping hands. However, he wasn't expecting her to throw herself at his legs before he could even turn around. He managed to evade her clawing fingers, barely, but Mary lost her balance and went sprawling across the floor. Leon threw himself on top of her, trying to pin her down without putting any part of his body into close proximity of her teeth. Mary brought her knee up hard and fast, connecting with his stomach with more force that he had expected from someone of her size and physical stature. Leon grunted, his grip briefly lifting as the pain in his stomach registered in his brain. Mary, her fingers clawing wildly at the exposed skin of his face and neck, scissored her legs around his waist, using her viral strength to reverse their positions so he was below her, her legs wrapped tightly around his waist.

Using his uninjured arm to try to pin her scrabbling hands, Leon wrapped his other hand around her neck, pushing her away from his face and chest. Mary grabbed at his bloody arm, sinking her fingers into the wound so more blood would pour out.

"Hunnnnnnngry," she slurred, saliva starting to drip out of one corner of her mouth. She gripped his bleeding arm in both her hands, pulling the limb away from her neck and towards her mouth as Leon struggled with all of his strength to pull his arm out of her grasp. It was absurd to watch his failing attempts against a girl whose arm he could have circled with his fingers nearly up to her elbow. Finally he resorted to raining hard blows down on her head, but although her nose and lips bled and his watch scratched a line across her cheek, her strength and determination did not falter.

"Jesus Chris, do something!" Jill whispered beside him, startling him back to the reality of the situation. Chris sprinted over to the brawl on the floor, using his momentum to knock Mary off of her prey and pinning her to the ground underneath him, his knees on either side of her waist and his hand wrapped around her already bruising neck.

"OFF!" she screamed at him, thrashing wildly. "OFF! OFF! OFF!" Chris could smell the sweet scent of blood all over her hands. But under that was something else, something… familiar. Something… friendly? He could smell the infected stench of her, the same stench he smelled all over himself, and a part of him immediately loved it, needed it, wanted to help it.

"Help me," pleaded with him, going limp suddenly. Apparently her body had noticed the same familiarity in him. Her hands went up to cradle his face with surprising gentleness, the fingers of one hand tracing Leon's blood over his lips while the other grabbed his shirt, trying to pull him close. "HELP ME!" She howled desperately, and Chris found it took all of his willpower not to give into that guttural yell and the warm blood trickling into his mouth. Her wide eyes stared into his and Chris felt his grip slackening on her neck. "We can TAKE them."

"Get everyone out. NOW," he said clearly, concentrating on each word as he forced it out of his mouth. His hand was shaking as he struggled to keep it pressed to her neck. The spectators rushed out of the gymnasium, and as soon as he heard the door close behind them he pushed himself away from Mary as hard as he could, distancing himself as much as possible.

"What the fuck was that?!" he asked, wiping the blood out of his mouth, spitting some of it onto the floor. Mary lay on the floor a few feet away, still breathing heavy, and staring blankly into space. When she didn't answer he stepped carefully towards her, pulling her into a sitting position. "Mary," he said slowly, "what the fuck was _that_?"

"Don't touch me!" she slapped his hands away. "Don't ever touch me again!" Chris raised his hands in a gesture of surrender and moved a little ways away, leaning up against a rack of folded bleachers. For a couple of minutes neither said anything.

"Do you think it's safe to go out there? For them, I mean." Chris asked.

"They hunt in packs," she said quietly, her arms wrapped tightly around her legs.

"What?"

"Don't you get it?! The Hunters – they work in packs to corner their prey."

"I know that," he said curtly, all too familiar with the hunting strategies of White Umbrella's monstrous Hunters. She looked over at him, curious at his outburst, but quickly averted her eyes when he turned to look at her. Her face, in the brief second he glimpsed it, was still heavily lined with fear and panic.

There was no way either could describe the sense of connection they had felt just a few minutes before. It was frightening to know that the virus had its controls in something that instinctual. In those brief moments he had felt closer to Mary than anyone else in that room.

"I guess we're a pack now," she said, facing the wall.

"I guess so."

"I don't think we should be alone together from now on," she said awkwardly, "ever."

"I think you're right," he looked down at the scuffs on his boots. "How long do you think it will it take to develop a treatment?"

"For you? Probably not too long – there's already a T-virus serum we can use as the basis."

"I'm sorry," Chris said earnestly, wishing he could express the real extend of his regret.

"Just go," Mary replied, still facing the wall, her voice starting to become hoarse as the effects of the virus wore off. Chris stood and left, Sherry slipping into the gym as he exited.

He had never felt so wholly awful in his entire life.


	16. Chapter 16

Chris sat in one of the make-shift dormitories, his head cradled in his hands. It was evening now, and after the events of the day the facility was quiet, everyone laying low and keeping to themselves. The emotional charge in the building had diminished slightly, but tempers were still strained, waiting for the slightest spark to set off the powder keg. Everyone was anxious to get back home to relative normalcy, but until things were more resolved it was better to stay put. Chris wondered what his new 'normal' would be now that Wesker was gone. For years the burning need for revenge had driven him, but now that his primary goal had been accomplished, he wasn't sure where to go. It wasn't something he'd put much thought into, since he'd assumed he would never outlive his former Captain. Imagining a happy ever after had seemed the surest way to jinx the outcome.

But he had succeeded, and the slippery sounds of the knife sliding through tendons and flesh still echoed through his head, the feel of the handle still burned into his palm. It was much easier to kill monsters that didn't take the shape of a man he had once admired.

The shape of a man, but without the blood of one – just like him. He pressed his palms into his eye sockets until he could feel his pulse throbbing against them. At first the power had been liberating, almost inspiring, but with each passing day Chris felt increasingly trapped by the poison in his veins. It was a horrible cycle of self-pity and self-loathing made all the worse by the sad looks he sometimes caught his friends giving him and the wide berth that no one seemed willing to cross. He could understand their concern, but didn't they realize what he had sacrificed? His humanity had been the price of their piece of mind and they treated him like a sick, vicious animal that needed to be left alone to die.

He shook his head, rattling the thoughts out of his brain. Resentment would only make things worse – if that were possible.

Out in the hallway, footsteps approached, soft and steady. The door opened and Jill stepped in, pausing when she saw him on the bed looking up from his hands.

"Oh…I didn't know there was anyone in here. I was just going to change and go for a run," she said, her tone light but slightly forced. In the whirlwind of the past few days they hadn't had much time alone to talk and a sense of awkwardness rapidly settled over the room.

"I can go if you like,"

"No, it's okay," she said, sitting down on the bed beside him, a hand-span away. She smelled so sweet. Just the smell of her was so sweet he couldn't believe he had never noticed it before. It made him feel a little ashamed that the virus that was tearing his life apart was what allowed him to feel closer to her.

"Jill…" he started.

"Chris," she said, his name trailing off in a frustrated sigh.

"I'm sorry," he didn't look at her, but stared down at his hands instead. They looked the same, but they didn't do things the way they used to.

"I know you are. You always apologize, but you always do the same stupid shit."

"I know," he wanted to apologize again, but thought it would just sound pathetic. He wanted to reach over and touch her leg, just to feel something _human_ again, but her posture gave off a clear warning.

"I'm not doing this again Chris. Ever. You pull this shit again and you're on your own." Her voice was soft but firm – totally serious.

"I know."

Jill scrubbed her hands over her face, trying to stall the headache she could feel building behind her eyes.

"You seem to know a lot of things, but you have no idea what it's like to be afraid like that," she said angrily, looking off into the corner. "Sometimes I think you do it just to test me."

"No," he said firmly, "it's not like that. I never wanted you to get hurt." Chris reached over and took her hand, relief flooding him as her fingers squeezed into his. When she said things like that, it was a lot harder for him to justify his decisions to himself. He brought her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss against the back of it. Jill twisted her body and wrapped her arms around his neck, burying her face against his collarbone. Chris hugged her back, pulling her tightly against his chest.

"Why aren't you afraid?" he asked in a desperate whisper against her ear. Jill pulled away a little to meet his eyes, a frown furrowing her forehead.

"Why would I be?"

"I am," he said bluntly. "I can feel myself slipping away a little more each day." His eyes were desperate and unguarded. "I don't know what's happening to me, but it's getting harder and harder to resist it. I'm afraid Jill, I'm really afraid. I don't want to be like _him_."

"It'll be okay," she said fiercely, drawing him in tightly as he buried his head against her neck.

"I could hurt you Jilly. I could hurt you so badly and I wouldn't even know it until it was too late."

"You're still the same person Chris. It'll all be okay."

"Promise me you won't let me hurt you baby,"

"Chris…"

"Promise me," he held her slightly away, gripping her arms tightly. His fevered eyes, normally so calm, burned into hers.

"I promise," she said softly. Her face was just inches from his, her lips full, his own aching to slide against them. But he couldn't close the distance between them. He was sick, infected with a horrible virus that was transmittable by who knew what means. He didn't deserve her. Still, sexual tension filled the air between them, taunting him on. Chris turned his body away, pulling her down onto the bed with him. Jill raised an eyebrow, but didn't try to move away as he rested his head against her chest.

"This is the last time, I promise," Chris said, leaning his head into her and wrapping his arms tightly around her waist. Jill threaded the fingers of one hand through his hair, the other wrapped around his shoulders. His skin felt warmer than usual where it pressed against her, warming her through her clothing.

"It had better be," she whispered only half serious, leaning her cheek against his head. They lay there for the rest of the night, clinging to each other and hoping that in the morning they would both be stronger.


	17. Chapter 17

"I've worked in some under funded labs before, but nothing quite like this," Mary said, shifting awkwardly on her stool in front of her makeshift lab station. Sherry made a soft sound of agreement from across the room. Normally they didn't talk much, crowded together in the second story classroom they worked as quickly as possible and without distraction. Anything that slowed the process down was an unwelcome interruption.

In a meeting that neither of them had been invited to it had been decided that, until the 'situation' was resolved, all parties should stay as close together, and as far away from the public at large, as possible. That made their current location ideal, as long as all parties could manage to coexist in a relative state of peace. Samples and equipment had been sent from S.T.A.R.S. headquarters and a pathetic excuse for a lab set up within the school. Rebecca had offered her services in trying to develop a treatment for the virus, but with their limited equipment there was only so much that could be done at once.

Sherry wasn't sure if she would want to inject herself with something that had been manufactured in such an environment, but it was getting to a point where she would do whatever it took to be able to leave. Thus far nobody had actually tried to physically restrain her from leaving, but she knew it would come to that if it had to. These people didn't mess around.

"If you don't mind my saying so," Mary didn't turn around as she spoke, "you're kind of young to be so skilled at this kind of thing, aren't you?"

"My parents were scientists," Sherry shrugged, even though her counterpart couldn't see it, "I had a bit of a head start."

"That man at the facility – the blonde – was he…"

"No," was the quiet response, "my father died a long time go. In Raccoon City."

"I'm sorry."

"It's fine," Sherry turned back to her work, adjusting the eyepiece of the nearly ancient microscope. It was another few minutes before Mary spoke again, her tone casual, but noticeably forced.

"Earlier you mentioned that you helped create what I…have. I was just wondering what the survival rates for…someone like me… are." Sherry turned away from her microscope again, but Mary was still facing away, her hands still where they lay on the countertop in front of her. Slowly she turned on her stool, her features lined with tension. "You can be honest."

"The truth is I'm not exactly sure. We never had a specimen that completed their programmed task and didn't immediately self-destruct after they came out of the haze."

Mary swallowed, biting the inside of her lip. She could easily recall the overwhelming feeling of disgust that had washed over her as she'd realized what she'd done. The taste of blood and bile had never really left the back of her throat.

"But you seem to be doing fine, right? If you're worried about what happened in the gym, I'm sure it was just a self defence mechanism." Sherry said, trying to sound as reassuring as possible. Mary tried to force a smile, but it came out as only a half-crooked twitch of her lips.

"Right," she said, turning halfway back to her station, her eyes tracing the pattern of tiles on the floor. "It's just… I have this headache that won't go away, and I have these _dreams_ that should be nightmares, but I wake up and I'm not afraid – because I _enjoy_ what happens in them."

Sherry could just reach Mary's arm if she stretched across the space between their workspaces.

"Hey," she said, giving the limb a little shake, "it's just stress. Don't worry about it." She smiled even as she forced the lie out between her teeth. "Everything will be back to normal soon."

"That's the thing – I don't really have anything to go back to after this. Is there really a place in the world for…things like me?" Sherry tightened her grip on Mary's forearm.

"For _people_, like _us_? Of course there is. You do amazing work, you'll be fine." Albert had never allowed her to feel ashamed of what she was. Why should she, when her father's gift had manifested itself in so many talents that made her so superior. They had had their disagreements, often quite vocal, but Sherry still felt off balance from the blow that was the loss of her surrogate father. She wasn't going to allow someone like her to feel the same way she had when she'd realized exactly what she was.

"You too?" Mary turned back towards her, surprised. "But you're so…normal."

"My parents were scientists, remember? Pretty good ones, too. You might have heard of them – William and Annette Birkin."

"_William Birkin_ was your father?" Mary stared at her, incredulous, like she'd just found out the woman sitting across from her was the son of God. "Well that explains a lot actually…What was he like?" she asked, a little timidly, as if she just couldn't quite resist.

Sherry snorted, turning back to her work, "I'm definitely the wrong person to ask about that one."

The room went quiet again, the sound of Sherry's pen scratching in her lab book the only sound.

"What will you do after this?" Mary asked.

"First, I'll probably make a few phone calls. Losing Albert is a major blow to the company, but there are plenty of people left to scramble around in the power vacuum. I need to make sure nobody takes my share out from under me."

"And what about them?" Mary asked, motioning with her head to the door and the group of individuals going about their business just beyond.

"Who cares?" Sherry shrugged, turning back to her work, "don't worry about them – they sure as hell don't worry about you."

Mary shifted on her stool, casually resting a hand on a messy stack of papers on the corner of her station. Underneath she could feel the hard resistance of the .45 calibre handgun she'd palmed off a desk in one of the rooms after Captain Redfield had asked to talk to her a couple of days earlier. _Just a little longer…_


	18. Chapter 18

Mary stared at the tabletop in front of her, the objects neatly arranged on top blurred by the tears she had given up on dashing away. There were three of them: one empty syringe, one full, and a loaded handgun.

The room was dark around her, the only light coming from a small desk lamp that looked as if it had been repurposed from the library at some point. Sherry had finished for the day a couple of hours earlier, but Mary, knowing she was close to completion, had soldiered on. It had been her creation after all, and had been born in much the same kind of atmosphere. How fitting that it should end this way too.

She pressed her hands to her mouth in a duel effort to both stop them from shaking and keep herself from crying out.

This was how it had to be. There were some actions that were unforgivable regardless of the circumstances. Everyone she knew already thought she was gone, killed in the leak that had only been the beginning for her. The beginning and the end – half a world apart and, for some, an entire lifetime in between. She had spent her entire life feeling like a nobody, and now she knew what it was really like to live as a non-person.

She was getting worse, she could feel it each passing day. Normal food held no appeal, but just the sight of a freshly changed bandage or someone's bloodstained old clothing was enough to have her salivating to the extent that she excused herself from the room. It was getting harder and harder to resist those primal urges that lurked somewhere at the back of her brain. Sometimes she caught the looks the others gave her sometimes and wondered if they could tell that she dreamed about splitting open their skulls and feasting on what was inside. It was impossible to live like this.

The capped syringe in front of her was innocently deceptive, the liquid inside non-threatening and clear. It was perfect – worthy of a legacy. This kind of perfection was only possible on something on such a small scale. It only had to work once, on one person with one affliction that she had personally manufactured. The syringe she had injected into herself had contained something a little more general. Its purpose was specific too, but its task was somewhat lighter – it only had to suppress the regenerative capabilities of the virus in her system for the next few moments.

Hands still shaking she pulled her lab notebook towards her, scrawling a few words on the next empty page. Although she felt a twinge of guilt about the mess, her hands steadied as she gripped the cool metal of the handgun.

She didn't bother to repent, just took a deep breath, placed the barrel of the gun between her teeth, and pulled the trigger.

Sherry was in the cafeteria, a spoonful of lukewarm soup halfway to her lips when she heard a gun shot go off. Footfalls immediately pounded from all wings of the facility as everyone headed towards the sound. Rebecca was already there when Sherry arrived at the small lab. The reek of fresh, infected blood had been easy enough for her to follow.

Mary, or what had formerly been Mary until just a few moments ago, sat slumped back in her chair, head thrown back and a pool of thick, dark blood growing on the floor underneath her. A S.T.A.R.S. issue handgun lay just under her hand, discarded. Rebecca looked up – she was sweet enough to actually have bothered checking for a pulse. More bodies, living ones, crowded into the hall and Sherry found herself pushed aside. Leon took one look and turned away, rubbing a hand over his eyes.

"Fucking hell. Who left a gun out anyway?" he asked no one in particular. Jill slipped in past him, her eyes immediately catching the light on the page of the notebook. Old habits die hard. She picked up the notebook from the desk.

"What's this she said," flipping through the pages to the last one with any writing on it. "_Not with a bang but_…" she read from the page.

"But what?" asked Chris, taking the notebook from Jill. Sherry backed away as he entered the small space, the edge of the corner pressing up against her spine and into her palms where she gripped it.

"But a whimper…" Claire said so quietly that Barry, who was standing immediately next to her, was the only one who heard her clearly.

"What?" Chris passed the book to Rebecca to flip through. She was likely the only person aside from Sherry who could make sense of what was written in it.

"It's Eliot.

_This is the way the world ends _

_Not with a bang but a whimper,_" Claire recited. Everyone went quiet.

"This is my fault," Chris said after a pause, wanting to reach over to close the glassy eyes that stared at nothing.

"It is _not_ your fault," his sister spat. Heads whipped around, incredulous, to face her. "Someone puts a gun in their _own_ mouth and pulls the trigger with their _own_ fucking finger – that's nobodies' fault but their own. _Christ_," she made a frustrated gesture with her hands "isn't anybody responsible for their own goddamn actions anymore?"

Chris stared at her, shocked – it was the most words she'd said to him, or even in his general vicinity, since their altercation when they'd first arrived at the facility. Not wanting to throw themselves directly into her warpath, everyone remained quiet as she stormed out.

"I'll start cleaning this up," Rebecca said, but Sherry, half-forgotten in a corner, pushed her way forward to stand protectively in front of the body.

"No," she said firmly, "I'll do it."

"But I could at least-"

"No. Everybody just leave. Please."

Still slightly shocked from the latest incident, the adrenaline finally starting to abate, the S.T.A.R.S. drifted back to whatever it was they had been engaged with previously. With everyone so crowded together, a 'do whatever you want, just give me enough time to get out of the way' policy had been quickly adopted. Chris lingered the longest, and Sherry stopped him just as he stepped out the door.

"Captain Redfield," she said, using the formal name Mary had never gotten past, "wait."

Chris turned and Sherry shoved something small and hard against his chest.

"Here, this is for you," she waited until he grasped the syringe and then pulled her hand away as quickly as possible, disgusted. "I hope you're happy."

Chris looked down at the syringe in his hand, over at the body in the chair, a few drops of blood still trickling off her hair, and finally at the fiercely angry looking young woman in front of him. He was so tired of it all he could feel the ache of it in the premature lines in his face.

"Don't I look happy?"

It took Sherry a while to wrestle the heavy, awkward body down to the broiler room and then to set up the industrial furnace there to act as an incinerator. But it wasn't the first time she'd ever disposed of something like this, and she was thankful for something constructive to do to distract her. It was a gruesome task, but at least it had immediate results. She was faintly out of breath when she stepped outside into the night air, peeling a slick pair of vinyl gloves off her hands.

She didn't have to see him to know he was there; her virally heightened sense of smell told her he used the same soap he had almost ten years ago.

"I came to see if you needed a hand with anything," Leon asked.

"Not from you," Sherry said, sitting herself on top of the protruding brick window ledge.

"Fine," he shrugged. "I came to apologize too."

Sherry turned her head to look at him, "For what, specifically?" Her tone was cold and inflammatory.

"Where would you like me to start?"

"Take your pick."

Leon sighed, leaning up against the doorway on the other side of the entrance, his arms crossed, looking out into nothing.

"It wasn't supposed to be this way for you."

"Is that what you told yourself when you dumped me off at that government office with those suits?"

"It wasn't like that. You _know_ it wasn't like that."

"I'm not a kid anymore Leon, I'm not going to just go along with everything you say."

"Yea well, neither am I. But I was when two huge fucking suits with government badges caught up with us. I was twenty-one years old and shit scared and I could barely take care of myself let alone anyone else." He took a couple of steps towards her, his clenched hands in an uncharacteristic show of emotion. "I sold my soul for you in that room – for _you_ - because I thought it would save you from shit like this. I only ever wanted what was right for you," his shoulder slumped and he leaned back against the wall. "You were such a sweet kid Sherry, you deserved better. I'm sorry I fucked it up."

"You're such a liar, Kennedy. I can't believe I ever fell for anything you said."

His eyes narrowed. The space between them was like a line drawn in the sand that neither was willing to physically cross, but could be easily broached by words.

"I never lied to you. Not once."

"You _did_!" her voice cracked slightly, her hands gripping the window ledge tightly. "You _did_ lie! You told me you would never leave me like she did, but you left and you _never came back_." Sherry took a deep breath and released it through her teeth. Her voice was steadier when she spoke again. "I was just a kid Leon, and you left me all alone with strangers who did horrible things to me."

Leon just stared at her, any anger sapped instantly out of his body. She took another deep, wavering breath before starting again. Her face was turned towards him, but she looked past him, remembering.

"I wait for you for a whole year Leon. A _whole year_ before I gave up. Every day they poked and prodded me like a lab rat but I just told myself that you were coming to save me from it – that you would never leave me in a place like that all alone. But you never came Leon, and after a year I gave up."

"You think I didn't try?" Sherry had never heard his voice so hoarse. His eyes were shadowed by the lock of hair that hung over his forehead. "I was in so deep it took _weeks _before I even found out. I tried, but I didn't know people then like I do now." His fists clenched again. "They had it all worked out from the beginning – neither of us stood a chance."

"What's done is done Leon, you weren't there for me but _he_ was, and he was a better father to me than William Birkin ever knew how to be. My father was a brilliant man who understood a lot of really complicated things, but he just didn't _understand_ know how to be a good dad. He tried, but it was Albert who taught me to be proud of what my dad had done for me. He taught me to stay away from people like you unless I wanted to end up like her," she gestured at the door behind her.

"I wound _never_ hurt you. Mary did that to herself – there are a lot of people here who would have done the same thing if they'd done what she had. It's not an easy way to live." A cold shiver still ran down his spine when he thought of the _plaga_. He could still feel the pain in his chest from when it had hatched.

"If you want to blame someone for hammering the nails in Ada Wong's coffin, blame yourself."

"Excuse me? Ada scammed Wesker out of the sample he wanted so he sicked one of his infected hounds on her. What does that have to do with me?"

"Why do you think Wesker sent Ada on that job in the first place? She was never the most reliable operative – why risk such an important mission on someone so questionable? Because of _you_ Leon. Because _you_ were strong enough to get the sample in the first place, and if you had it, she could get it from you. Easily."

He glared at her, as if daring her to finish the train of thought.

"And how did he know she could play you like that? Because I told him – I told him _everything_ about you, about _everyone_."

"Why would you do something so fucking stupid?"

"To make your life as hard as you made mine."

They stood opposite each other for a moment in the darkness. Sherry thought he might try to take a swing at her. She hoped that he would; she'd love to take him down a peg or two.

"So are we even now?" he asked between clenched teeth. She pushed herself off the window, brushing by him as she walked back towards the doors to the main area of the facility.

"Not even close."


	19. Chapter 19

"I think this is a bad idea."

"So you keep saying."

"I don't understand why we just can't wait until we get back home to a _real_ hospital with _real_ equipment. This is a huge risk Chris – it isn't worth it."

"I don't expect you to understand what this is like. I'm sick of waiting – I mean, _Christ_, just look at me Jill." He gestured down at himself, encompassing the gaunt hollows of his face, grey pallor, and ill-fit of his clothes in one sweeping arm movement. The same metabolic rate which had initially made him feel invincible was slowly eating him from the inside out, trying to drive him to fill its inhuman need with something unthinkable.

"I do Chris, everyday, and everyday I see that what you've done to _yourself_ is killing you – it's killing all of us, but that doesn't mean we need to fast-track it."

"You're never going to let me live this down, are you? Between you and my sister it's pretty much twenty-four fucking seven around here."

"Maybe you should have though about that before you went off and did something so completely moronic-"

"Okay, okay, that's enough," Rebecca interjected, physically inserting herself into the space between the two parties, putting a hand out to silence both. "I hate it when mommy and daddy fight, so can we please just give the cyclical arguments a rest for a few minutes?"

"We can end them right now. Rebecca, give me that syringe."

"Chris, we've been over this – if you want my help, you have to calm down and do things my way."

"Fine." Chris seated himself on the nearest cot, arms resting on his knees. "Let's go."

"Rebecca please, you know this is a bad idea."

"I'll admit, it's not the greatest, but I've done the tests and everything seems to check out. Believe me, if I thought it were possible to convince him there is a better way, I would."

"I guess I'm out voted then." Jill crossed her arms, wrapping them tightly around herself. She wished she could freeze time until she could think of a way to prevent the next few moments from happening. Of course she couldn't, but that didn't mean she was going to stick around and watch the carnage. "I'll leave you to it then."

"Jill wait," Chris reached out and grabbed her arm. When she stopped mid-step, her weight sagging from her shoulders, his grip slipped down to her hand, threading through the limp digits. "Stay, please?"

She didn't turn around to look at him, didn't want to see his sickly features with their earnest, pleading eyes. A small, scared part of her was screaming for her to keep walking, but Chris had been her partner for a long time, on a lot of different levels, and she couldn't just walk away from him.

The cot sunk down beside him, the angular weight of her sidearm pressing into his thigh. Her didn't need heightened senses to feel the anxiety radiating off of her. He wanted to put his arm around her, to regain some of the intimacy they had shared up until recently, but was afraid she might shrug him off.

"You really think he'll be okay?" she asked Rebecca who was standing aside a little awkwardly. The younger woman nodded, a tight smile crimping the side of her mouth. "Then can we please just get this over with?"

Rebecca picked up the syringe from a low cabinet, pulling off the cap. She had spent every waking moment of the past several days pouring over the research material and equipment left in the small lab. Although she was no Sherry Birkin, Rebecca was confident enough in her abilities to say for certain that she was _fairly_ confident that Chris would _probably_ not suffer any kind of irreparable damage. Chris was a Redfield – he loved the thrill of the gamble, so that was good enough for him. Jill on the other hand thrived on predictability, known actions and reactions. Having a burglar for a father had caused her plenty of grief, but it had also inspired a love of organized planning and risk management. This was a nightmare.

For the first moment after the initial pinprick Chris didn't feel anything except the focused gaze of the two women next to him. Just like the first time. Then, a freezing chill started in his arm, pulsing its way through his system. He looked down at the offending limb but other than a faint trail of gooseflesh, it appeared normal. When the ice hit is diaphragm he gasped aloud.

"Chris, you're sweating…" Jill squeezed his hand in hers, wiping her palm across his temple. Rebecca took a hold of his other wrist, pressing her fingers in to feel his increasingly rapid heart rate. Both could feel the shivers starting in his shaking hands.

Chris just shook his head, concentrating on breathing through the needle points which seemed to have grown out of his ribcage in the past minute or so. Tooth enamel clattered against itself as his organs clenched, his entire body focusing all effort into generating some kind of warmth.

Jill looked up at Rebecca, but the biochemistry whiz kid kept her eyes averted, watching the hands on her wristwatch and counting the beats under her fingertips.

Suddenly Chris tensed, jerking his right hand away from Jill to press it over his heart, biting his lip to keep back some expression of pain. He was no stranger to the sensation, and Jill knew what he was feeling must be excruciating. His breath was coming short and much faster than normal.

"Fucking _Christ_," forced its way out through grinding teeth, as much spittle as dialogue. Rebecca eased him onto his back on the cot with a gentle, insistent pressure on his shoulder. As he lay back Chris abandoned any hope of composure while the muscles of his back simultaneously constricted. He let out a growl of pain while an odd thought flashed through his mind.

_This must be what its like to die of tetanus. Thanks a fucking lot Mary fucking Volsky._ The thought was punctuated with a gasp, blue eyes opening wide before screwing themselves shut.

Icy needles drove themselves into the tender flesh of his organs. The unprotected vital parts pleaded for the comfort of the foetal position, a comfort which was too much to ask from the constricted muscles of his back.

It hadn't been so long that Chris had forgotten the discomfort of his infection, the burning agony of that process. But with the uncontrollable shivers that vibrated his organs, the barbs across his ribcage, the wrenching muscle cramps, and Jill Valentine desperately, pleadingly gripped onto his hand Chris thought that this was possibly the only thing that could be worse.

And then, like before, everything went black.

Jill felt an overwhelming jolt of panic as Chris sagged into the mattress, the hand gripping hers going limp. Her heart seemed to leap past her throat into the base of her skull, pumping logic-dulling adrenaline straight to her brain. She scrabbled with the lifeless wrist in front of her, struggling to find a pulse.

"Rebecca," her voice sounded alien in her ears, "I can't feel anything…"

Rebecca stepped around from her station at the head of the cot, fingers pressed into the cords of Chris' neck. She guided Jill's fingertips to the point where she could feel a faint flutter against the pressure. The warmth of Rebecca's soft hand over hers reminded Jill of exactly what made its owner such a successful medic at such a young age; in a world of an increasing number of cynics, Rebecca actually, genuinely cared about people.

"It's okay Jill," she said, giving the older woman's shoulder a light squeeze. For all their years of work together, Rebecca had never seen Jill display that kind of emotion – as a female cop she had quickly learned to damper anything that would make her appear weak. Jill placed her free hand overtop for a moment, the other still locked onto Chris' heartbeat. "He just needs some rest." She stepped away, stuffing her equipment back into the neat little kit she always kept with her. "I'm going to go see if there's still something to eat around here. Just radio me if anything happens."

Jill nodded, her features still uncharacteristically tight, which Rebecca took as her cue to leave. She stepped into the hallway and started when she almost walked into the other arrangement of Redfield genetics. Claire Redfield was white as a sheet, her eyes wide, staring at the door behind her head, one worried finger pinned between her front teeth.

"Claire, hey, everything's going to be fine," Rebecca forced perhaps a little extra chipperness into her voice. Claire didn't say anything, just stared at her with shining eyes the same blue as the ones she'd just seen tighten in pain. "I'm going to grab a coffee or something, do you want to come?"

The younger Redfield shook her head, wrapping her arms tightly around herself.

"No thank you," she said, sliding down the wall until she was seated on the ground, "I think I'm just going to stay here for a while." Her voice was as hoarse as Rebecca had ever heard it.

"Alright. I'll be back in a couple of hours." Light footfalls announced Rebecca's departure. Claire curled up into herself, eyes fixated on a crack in the door that was keeping her from hurling herself into the room and apologizing to her brother's unconscious form.

Chris woke up feeling like someone had wrapped his head in an entire package of gauze. His eyes watered as soon as he opened them, the world seemingly terribly out of focus. The motions of sitting up and lifting his hands up to rub at his faulty eyes disturbed a heavy weight which had been resting on his on arm. Jill groaned as her head fell against the mattress, the muscles in her back protesting the awkward position she'd fallen asleep in.

The wild halo of her hair in the orange light of dawn reminded him of the first time they'd ever slept together and he'd almost frozen to death after she'd wrapped herself in his giant comforter, her mussed up hair the only thing visible above the roll of flannel. She had stopped her hand mid eye-rub to stare at him, wide eyed, her mouth at a loss for words.

Chris licked his lips to say something, but Jill lunged across the cot at him, wrapping her arms tightly around his neck. He crushed her against his chest, loving the absolutely human sensation of her body against his, the comforting smell of her. Cupping her cheek in one of his hands, he roughly pressed their lips together, the sweet taste of her soothing an ache he hadn't been able to identify. Together they were a blur of sensations, eyes closed then open, mouths fused in a wet, intimate join, hands roving and grasping. Jill grabbed the hem of his shirt, pushing it up over his chest, running her hands over the hard muscle, finally able to feel his heart beating calmly underneath. He slid his own hand up against the silk of her bare back, running a thumb across the sensitive nub of her spine underneath the clasp of her bra. Something in his guts shifted with a low, hungry gurgle.

Jill stilled all of her movements and Chris dropped his forehead against hers with a resigned sigh, his eyes closed. Jill tried to keep her composure, but her giddy amusement escaped in a kind of half-snort.

"Don't even," he warned, his blue eyes opening to glare at her at close range.

"I never was much of a match for your first love," she said with a laugh, patting his belly lightly. "I'll go find something for you."

"I'm sure I can think of a couple ways to suppress my appetite," Chris said, reaching for her again, but she swatted his hand away.

"No way. You need some real food to get your strength back. You've barely eaten anything in weeks – I think you'd probably run out of energy halfway through anyway."

Chris rolled his eyes and stretched back out on the bed, his hands behind his head.

"Fine – but no more canned beans. Just for one day, please."

"No promises on that one," she leaned over for one more lingering kiss.

Stepping out the door she almost tripped over a pair of long booted feet which were stretched almost across the width of the hallway. Leon was sitting against the opposite wall, Claire stretched out beside him using his thigh as a pillow. Jill quirked an eyebrow into a question which Leon answered with a hitch in his shoulder. This kind of communication had developed quickly and naturally to the two parties who often found themselves with ringside seats to various demonstrations of Redfield temper. Leon jerked his chin towards the door behind her, asking a question of his own, and the only reply she could think of was a contagious smile. Leon smiled back and watched her walk away down the hall. Claire shifted her head on his leg, opening her eyes and propping herself up on one arm.

"What's going on?" she asked groggily, pulling herself up into a seated position.

"I don't know," he said with both a shrug and a grin, "but I think we get to go home now."


	20. Chapter 20

Sherry hated airports at least as much as any other public place, aside from truck stop bathrooms. The overwhelming press of sounds, smells, and sights gave her a headache in a degree that no one totally human could fully understand. Her eyes scanned the crowd of eager family members milling around the bottom of the escalators at Toronto's Lester B. Pearson International Airport. She caught sight of an auburn-haired man dressed in an impeccable grey suit, his eyes hidden behind mirrored aviator glasses, and threaded her way toward him, her small backpack hardly hindering her in the crush of people. As he glimpsed the irritated blonde making her way over to him, Steve Burnside pushed himself away from the wall he had been casually leaning up against., tucking his sunglasses into the lapel pocket of his suit jacket A foot away from him, Sherry dumped her pack and let herself be pulled into a crushing hug that lifted her off the balls of her feet.

"Jesus Christ, way to scare the fucking shit out of me," he said, feeling her arms wrap tightly around his waist.

"It's nice to see you too," her reply was muffled in the soft fabric of his shirt. He smelled like he always did: like drycleaning, expensive cologne, and the greasy, messy shawarmas he almost always had for lunch.

After a moment he let go, picking up her backpack and slinging it over one shoulder, slinging his other arm to usher her out to the parkade. She would feel better once she was out in fresh air, he knew. Steve walked her over to his car – Sherry didn't spend a lot of time reading up on these kinds of things, but the small, smooth, gold convertible was undeniably expensive looking and obviously the envy of any testosterone possessing creatures in the near vicinity. "A boner on wheels" is how Steve usually described these types of things to her. She raised an eyebrow at him and he shrugged with an innocent grin, leaping over the side of the car into the driver's seat.

They sped through the city towards downtown, the wind barely managing to cut the humidity. One hand on the wheel, the other drumming against the side of the door, wind whipping his almost-too-shaggy-to-be-respectable hair around like a snowstorm, cocky smile in full gear, Steve was obviously in his element. Sherry couldn't wait to crawl into a bed and stay there for the next few decades. Steve pulled up to the driveway of a posh-looking hotel, flipped the keys to the valet and whisked her upstairs before she even had a chance to really register anything more about her surroundings. After spending the better part of two days in airports and cramped economy seating she was on sensory overload as it was.

Wesker had 'collected' Sherry and Steve just a few weeks apart and thrown them together to form a kind of twisted, _tyrannical_ family unit. Having been triggered so quickly after infection, Steve had never been able to regain total control over the T-Veronica virus. What he had been infected with manifested itself only in short, painful outbursts which needed to be deliberately triggered and left him barely functioning for days afterward. As a biological weapon, his use was minimal and hardly efficient.

Instead, he had applied his efforts elsewhere, using the drive to overcome he had honed on Rockfort to succeed in one of the least likely places for smart mouthed kids like himself – the boardroom. Terrorizing the middle-aged men who frequented his new domain was almost as fun as spending the paycheques.

Steve placed Sherry's light bag on a chair by the door, draping his coat over the back. Sherry immediately moved towards the floor to ceiling windows that made up one entire wall of his massive, modern hotel suite. The view was impressive, and would have been more so if it hadn't been for haze of summer smog. She heard him sink into the leather of the couch behind her, groaning as he pressed his fingers into his eyes.

"Are those sons of bitches ever going to be _pissed_ that you're back," his smile was audible. "They were ready to write you off with the rest of the office furniture, but I told them no fucking way." She could imagine the kind of delight he would take in squaring off against the board members, revelling in their resentment of his youth, his playboy attitude, and especially of his power. He always referred to them as _those sons of bitches_ so that she thought of them endearingly as his _sons of bitches_.

Of course it was impossible for one man to personally oversee every aspect of a huge corporation like Albert's new Umbrella, but he had done the next best thing by installing the two people closest, and most loyal, to him, as major players. Up until recent events Sherry had been head of the research division. Steve ran the board room like his own personal circus. Always, Albert had maintained control over the majority of the company, having learned too well what fractious factions could do to an institution. However, in his absence, that majority had fallen to the two he had spent years preening for the job.

Something buzzed in Steve's pocket and he pulled out his cellphone with a dramatic roll of his eyes.

"What?" he spoke curtly into the receiver, "are you fucking kidding me? Does that moron think I was born yesterday or what? I told him no goddamn way I'm signing off on _anything_ until Petersen is finished with his report and it's exactly the way _I_ want it. Is that so hard to understand? So you can tell him to forget it. And while you're at it, tell him I want to see him at Head Office at 9am tomorrow for a meeting. I want everyone there with no goddamn excuses. Tell 'em that it'll definitely be worth there while because I've got something they are not going to want to miss. I don't care what you have to do, just make sure everyone's there." He tossed the phone down on the table. "Christ is it ever hard to find good help these days. You want something to eat?"

Sherry shook her head, sinking down into the other end of the couch, curling her legs up under her. She leaned back the leather cool against her skin, closing her eyes. She could hear Steve ordering her favourite to room service at the other end of the couch and smiled. When she was younger she had never fully understood why Claire had left to find Chris, but when she thought of the renegade sitting just a few feet away and all they had been through – all they had yet to go through together, she understood perfectly.

Steve let her rest until the food showed up, setting the covered trays down on the coffee table. The savoury smell of overpriced fare which had never inhabited a can or ration pack awoke an almost painful hunger in her. He lifted the tray off her plate, revealing an artistically arranged set of poached eggs, unbuttered toast, and fresh fruit.

"Voila," he said, pulling the cover off his own plate, a rack of ribs glistening in marinade underneath. Steve turned on the TV low in the background, and for a few minutes the room was quiet except for the neutral tones of a local new anchor droning on and the scrape of cutlery on ceramic. He waited until she pushed away her plate, still half uneaten, before speaking again.

"So," his tone was almost casual in between mouthfuls, "can we talk about what happened over there? I was pretty goddamn worried when the whole place went up and I didn't hear a peep out of anyone."

Sherry curled back up into the couch, her arms wrapped around her waist, eyes half focused on the oversized TV screen. She had known she would have to explain eventually, but any and all efforts at preparation had failed miserably.

"They butchered him," she said softly. "They butchered him alive right in front of me and I couldn't do anything but watch." She turned toward him, holding out her arms helplessly. "What is the point of all of this if you can't even save someone you care about?"

Steve pushed his plate away, suddenly nauseated by the taste and feel of flesh in his mouth. He wiped his fingers on a napkin and turned towards her, still letting her have her space.

"Hey c'mon now sweetness, don't act like it's your fault. You're smart enough to know that's not true."

Sherry dropped her hands into her lap and hung her head. "They were all there, and it's like I automatically reverted to being twelve years old again. I was so _weak_."

"Who was there?"

"Leon…and Claire," she said the last name quietly. It was a word with heavy meanings and even heavier repercussions for them both. She heard him swallow, saw the slow-motion arc of a napkin being thrown down in disgust. "A juvenile part of me thought it would still be the same after all this time. But it wasn't. It was _horrible_. I still dream about that knife every night, and the way his fingers were still…" she trailed off, wiping her eyes quickly with the back of her hand. She looked up at him, seeing genuine concern in his grey eyes, any hint of boyish recklessness long gone. "I just miss him so much already. I wasn't ready for him to go."

Steve heard the waver in her voice and moved instinctively to wrap an arm around her shoulders, her hands fisting furiously into his shirt. He held her tightly, feeling immensely protective, his imagination filling his mind with a thousand, satisfying, gruesome methods of revenge.

"Shhhh," he soothed her, giving her shoulder a quick rub as if to warm her up, "hey c'mon, remember what we were always taught about betrayal? It hurts more when it's someone close to you, but afterwards it's just that much easier to _rip out their hearts_."


	21. Chapter 21

"Just look at them."

Leon looked up from consolidating half-spent magazine rounds into full clips and saw Claire staring past his shoulder. He hazarded a glance backwards to where Chris and Jill were playing tetris with the back of the van. Chris made a gesture, his usual sloppy grin reinstated in place, and Jill shoved him playfully on the chest before re-crossing her arms over her chest, obviously instructing him to take everything out and start over again.

"Yea, it's pretty nauseating," he said, jamming a few more rounds in and tossing the clip into the box with the rest of them. "But I thought you chicks were all about that sappy stuff. You know, guy meets girl, guy injects himself with a biological weapon, girl busts his balls for a couple of weeks, they get married and have some kind of adorably mutated baby that we all learn to love."

Claire rolled her eyes at him, packing another handful of rations into a cardboard box. "Don't be disgusting. The last thing any girl wants is to be 'auntie' to some kind of Chris-Jill-tentacle hybrid. And anyway, that's not what I mean."

She folded the flaps into the ration box and pushed it aside, grabbing the box of full clips and organizing them neatly inside.

"It's just… they wasted so much time – time they didn't even know they had. They could have had this the whole time and they _chose_ not to. Why?"

"To protect each other," Leon said simply, handing the last full clip to her. She took it and placed it neatly in the box without looking up at him. "Somethings are easier if you don't have anyone to lose."

"Is there really such a huge difference between losing someone and never having them in the first place?"

Leon shrugged. "I couldn't say."

There was a long pause, Claire looking down at her working hands. "I don't want that for me," she said, looking up to stare straight at him. Leon felt his vocal chords paralyze, his spit going down in a thick lump. If Leon allowed his mind to be truthful with himself, and he rarely ever did, he didn't want _that_ either.

Unfortunately, _that_ was exactly what he had signed up for with the United States Government. _That_ was what he lived with every day. People in his line of work couldn't afford to have attachments; they were messy and distracting. It wasn't that relationships were expressly forbidden, simply that the calibre of people that qualified for Leon's organization were usually ill-suited to any kind of intimate human to human contact.

Even more unfortunate, Leon realised, was that what he _did_ want, was staring back at him with an expression he couldn't quite read.

From the back of the van Chris yelled for them to bring over the rest of the boxes. Leon grabbed the heavier of the two, glad for the diversion.

It was almost two hours later before they were alone again. Claire found Leon fine-combing the room they had shared (separate bunks after the first night – just like old times), making sure there was nothing left to reveal that they had once stayed there.

"You almost ready to go?" she asked. He turned, not startled to see her standing in the doorway. No matter how quiet she thought she was, she hadn't been able to sneak up on him in years.

"Yeah," he said, glancing out the window to where the sun was just beginning to set behind the trees. He wasn't sure if he could ever tell her how much he appreciated her not treating him like a total asshole for shooting his mouth off the other night.

"So," she started, smoothing out the blanket on the cot nearest to her, "I was just wondering if you still had that spare room at your place." Claire, as a Redfield, had always been one to charge full-steam ahead, never shy about asking for what she wanted. It was a quality that had gotten her into some awkward situations, but it certainly made awkward situations like this go by faster.

"Of course. Ever since my brothers started having kids I've been demoted back to black sheep status. No visitors for this guy."

"You?" she asked, mock-incredulous, "the Lazarus son?"

"I guess I'm not as cute as I used to be."

"You've definitely lost your 'new baby' smell."

"Hey, at least I'm toilet trained." Leon noticed her drumming her fingers against the blanket, a touch of nervousness escaping through her fingertips. "Why do you ask?"

"I was just wondering if you would mind if I crashed at your place for a while."

"Thinking of taking an extended vacation in Washington?"

"I just need to get away from everything for a while. If it's a problem, don't worry about it-"

"It's not a problem," he said definitely, coming to stand on the opposite side of the bed.

"Thanks Leon, for everything. I really appreciate all the things you do for me; that you've always done for me."

Leon, ever modest, shrugged it off.

"Don't worry about it. Some day I'll ask you for a really big favour and we can call it even. Now c'mon, we better get out there before Chris starts getting impatient."

Leon closed the door behind them as they walked out towards the van, the facility quiet and growing dark in the fading light. As the front doors slammed shut behind them, Leon wondered to himself if it was finally okay to hope that this was the end of what had started so long ago, so far away in a small, Mid-western American city.


	22. Chapter 22

Claire woke up to the sound of the shower running in the next room. She turned over and looked at the rumple of sheets and blankets that was Leon's bed. Trying to book last minute flights back to the States had been a nightmare and Leon had insisted that if they were going to have to endure a sixteen hour stop over in Frankfurt, it may as well be in the comfort of a real bed and not a row of airport waiting-room chairs. At first Claire had resisted; she was short enough to curl up in relative comfort almost anywhere, and it wasn't like Leon really slept anyway. But sinking down into the plush pillow she was glad he'd persuaded her. The shower switched off and Claire pulled herself up into a seated position against a bank of pillows. It had been years since she and Leon had been able to spend this amount of time together and it was nice not to feel the pressure of a whirlwind visit.

" 'morning starshine," Leon said stepping out of the bathroom, his hair still damp and his clothes slightly sticking to his not-quite dry physique. Not that she was noticing.

"Top 'o the mornin' to you Mister Kennedy."

"Don't even start with the Irish jokes. Not until I've had at least three cups of coffee," he said, dumping the provided bag of ground coffee into the miniature coffee maker set up on the dresser.

Claire reached for the remote on the nightstand that was nestled in between their beds, turning on the television with the press of a button. Leon leaned back on the disaster of his own bed, his bare feet sticking out the end. She flicked idly through the channels as the smell of cheap coffee filtered through the room.

"Nice, finally some English channels," she said stopping on an all-day news feed. The anchor was reporting on the sale of a major British corporation while other headlines scrolled across the bottom. Claire shook her head, "now I remember why I don't watch tv. Maybe there's some hallucinogenic children's program on," she said, flipping channels.

"Hey wait, go back for a sec," Leon said, sitting up.

" – _our top story. A viral outbreak has been contained within a hospital of a mid-western American city. Residents of Madison, Wisconsin have been warned to stay away from the University of Wisconsin Hospital campus, and are advised to-_"

In an instant Leon felt every drop of his blood rush out of his chest cavity into his skull.

"Leon are you okay?" Claire asked, leaning forward. His fists clenched into the blankets, his face flickering between unnatural calm and something Claire had never seen before.

"My mom works at that hospital," he said tightly. Claire looks back at the screen where shaky, amateur footage was showcasing a line of riot-gear police forming a human barricade. She didn't know what to say, so she didn't say anything. She wanted to reach out to him, but his body language warned her off. In her chest, her heart clenched in on itself.

From the nightstand Leon's cellphone gave a chirp, and he reached for it instantly with one swipe of his long arm. His eyes scanned the brief message in a heartbeat and his face went hard in a way that Claire thought she should probably, no, _definitely_ be afraid of.

"Leon," she ventured softly, "what is it?" Her heart felt like a black hole in her chest. In the background the news anchor droned on.

He tossed the phone onto her bed, leaning down to pull on his socks in swift, resentful movements.

"Get dressed," he said curtly.

Claire picked up the phone, already half out of bed. On the screen was a brief message:

_Now we're even._

-End Part I-


End file.
